


In Search of Silver Linings, We Discovered Gold

by LadyVader



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Family, M/M, Pseudo-Incest, Slow Burn, Thorki - Freeform, Thunderfrost - Freeform, pseudo power imbalance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 21:23:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 109,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18948943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVader/pseuds/LadyVader
Summary: Loki wet his lips. He wanted to tell him, he wanted to say... everything. All he managed, however, was a single strangled sob before Thor had enfolded him completely, a hand cradling the base of Loki’s skull as he drew him close and tight, his silent cries embedded in the taut stretch of Thor’s throat.“Loki... Loki, what has happened? Tell me – are you in pain? Loki, Loki, speak to me, brother!”Loki’s lips shifted at the hot skin over Thor’s pulse and tried the words out, just to see how much they’d hurt, his tears searing him as he forced the truth free.“I’m not your brother,” he whispered to himself and the sound shattered against his teeth, muffled by the roar of Thor’s blood beating beneath his skin and the misery rolling from him in long, racking cries. Thor crushed him close, so tight that Loki’s head swam and he trembled, allowing himself the luxury of finally falling apart, knowing Thor would hold the world at bay for him, at least for a little while.My brother, he thought,mine...The One Where Loki discovers Thor's not his brother but the only person who can make him feel better is Thor himself.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi *waves* so I started this immediately post-Avengers in 2012 and then lost the verve a few thousand words in. The verve returned this January, kicked me up and down the block a few times, and I finished it the same day I saw Endgame, soooo it's been interesting lol.
> 
> This is technically complete, but I hope to update very week-ish whilst my awesome bud and beta DysonRules finishes digging herself free after I unkindly dumped this on her <3 thanks so much Cheryl, sorry for the horrific grammar - also my enormous thanks to Dreambastion for holding my hand while I squicked hard and freaked myself out, as well as my lil sis, Stormwing_Queen, & DLS for the cheerleading - you guys are all absolute stars <3
> 
> RIGHT - The reason I wanted to put this note up is to cover a few things I didn't know how to tag, the first of those being that I obviously do not feel the way Loki does about adoption. I'm blessed with an extended family that loves me and who I love desperately in return, whether we're related by blood, marriage or choice, the premise of this fic is entirely based on Loki's major upset (from the first 'Thor' film) at discovering himself to not be who he thought he was so, if his immediate familial disconnect irks you, please know it's not my personal view but my attempt to branch out from the movie canon.
> 
> The second reason is that I don't know how to tag 'falling for your brother who YOU know isn't your brother but he doesn't' and the power dynamics of that bothered me so if there are any tags you think I should add to cover that then please let me know :)

**Part One:**

It began with an ice cube, of all the irritating, insignificant things to literally shift the earth beneath his feet and cast his world to ruin.

It was otherwise a somewhat ordinary February day, seemingly pleasant enough but shifting from joy to agony so swiftly and with such precision that he almost wondered later at his not having planned it all himself.

He had been headed towards the blender, mid-sentence, mid-stride and mid-smile as he lost his footing, the lone, slippery cube skittering across the floor beneath his weight. For a moment Loki laughed, arms wind-milling as he attempted to stop his sudden rush forwards, his laughter cut short as he fell, his swiftly upraised hands and forearms punching through the plate glass cabinet door as he toppled over.

Sandu laughed, spraying his freshly made _Mojito_ across his grandmother’s antique kitchen table, rocking back and forth as he howled his mirth at Loki’s sudden relocation to the floor, and Loki might have joined him had it not been for the _hotbrightsharp_ lance of pain shooting up his right arm. Struggling to turn himself onto his back, Loki held up his hands to see shards, big and small, all jagged and oddly beautiful, diamond-like where they sat embedded into his palms and wrists.

For a second he thought the pain out of scale with such a stupid accident. Then, before he could do more than try to sound out Sandu’s name past the dryness of his mouth (his own name echoing distantly back at him in horror), he blinked in surprise at the rippling sheet of scarlet pouring down his arm and fell into darkness.

He awoke, briefly, a seemingly short time later - cold and weak and scared and _furious -_ to the bustle of paramedics and the shrill sound of Sandu’s grandma berating him loudly. She did so at some length (for breaking into her liquor cabinet, for messing up her kitchen with their cocktail making party, for not knowing the number for Loki’s parents’ house) and then someone clamped something tight down on his arm, and Loki allowed himself the luxury of unconsciousness again.

+++

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to a sterile-looking ceiling tile above him and the slow, murky sensation of surfacing from the depths.

Loki smiled, blissful in the way he only found himself on opiates and in love-worn childhood memories.

_Morphine, then - niiiiiiice_.

“What – what happened?” he slurred to the tall figure fiddling with an empty bag, watching dazedly as they removed said bag only to replace it with one shimmering thickly, red and slick just like...

_Oh_.

“My… M’hands... M’arm?” he croaked and felt a gentle pressure at his shoulder, turning his head to find the steadying weight of his father’s gaze upon him.

“You fell, my boy. The glass nicked your radial artery, Loki. You lost a lot of blood, so they’re just… topping you back up again, so to speak.” Odin smiled gently, eyes steady, and something that had coiled low in Loki’s belly released its hold just enough for a relieved sigh to work its way free.

“M’ sorry...” He breathed and felt his father’s hand pass over his forehead.

“It's alright, son, rest now. You’re still on a lot of medication for your injuries, so sleep, Loki. Sleep and feel better.”

The weight of his father’s words, his very presence, anchored him then, and held him steady as he let his eyes blink once, then twice before closing, the last image searing into his mind as he sank back into sleep, a furrow forming between his brows as the words writ themselves in bold behind his eyelids.

**A-NEGATIVE**.

++

When Loki awoke next it was with a lurch of nausea that had little to do with the come-down from drugs or his suffering, hungry body, as he rolled over with something akin to a whimper to glare balefully at where his blood transfusion had apparently ceased, the incriminating bag now absent, as was his father.

“Your dad’s just stepped outside to make a phone call,” an absurdly cheerful nurse supplied as she bustled into the room, appropriating his right arm with a decidedly cavalier attitude that Loki wasn’t sure he cared for, before clucking approvingly at his still-fresh dressings.

“Now, the doctors said you’re alright to head on home, but you’ve got nineteen stitches in you under this dressing, sugar, so you’ll need to be keeping a close eye on that, ok? I told your father all he needed to know about the upkeep, but I’m telling _you_ now, no picking or scratching if it itches, no getting them wet and in about five weeks--“

“Yes. Fine,” Loki bit out, his head now burdened with an abundance of useless information when everything in him was clamouring, _screaming_ even, for just a single scrap of actually essential knowledge. He smiled thinly, pulling his lips firmly over his teeth to snatch back the snarl that teetered there. “I’m sorry, I’m still feeling a little off-kilter. Would you mind explaining why the bag before had ‘ _A-Negative_ ’ written on it? I’m really quite sure that’s not my blood type and...”

Something fell, leaden, to his toes at the nurse’s automatic snatch and flick at his notes, one pudgy finger tapping affirmatively over the relevant section almost instantly. “There you go, _A-Negative_ , sweet-pea. Don’t worry, we’ve not got you all mixed up. Your Daddy told us himself what to give you.”

Words crowded behind his teeth, jostling and furious where they remained, poisoning his tongue even as he swallowed back the automatic rebuttal, blinking at her until his vision cleared.

“Thank you.” He said, his smile and tone stiff with careful precision. “That’s... good to know.”

_No, no, NO._

_Not possible._

_NOT POSSIBLE._

The blood drive, his father’s _stupid fucking_ annual blood drive, had only been a month prior and Loki had sat at his mother’s side, idly chatting with her as she’d had her donation drawn. He’d been exempt himself by being just a handful of months shy of his majority, stealing her cookies and juice, laughing as she half-heartedly scolded him, as they spoke of everything and nothing in turn as Loki first filled out her form for her and then his father’s in turn.

_Everything_ and _nothing_.

A spear of seeming ice drove through him and he resisted the urge to rest his head in his palms and _scream_. He needed to get out of there.

He straightened, flexing his fingers for the quick, sickening tug of his stitches to tie him fast to the moment, smiling again, formal and gracious and every inch his father’s son. “If you’ll excuse me, I just need a moment. Would you tell my father...?”

His unwitting accomplice waved her hands gaily between them, winking as though somehow a possible need for the facilities had become a private joke. “It’s just down the hall on the left, honey. Don’t worry, I’ll tell your daddy you’ll be right back.”

He folded his teeth further behind his lips, turning on his heel before striding out into the hallway, stalking past the bathrooms and grimly on toward the emergency exit signs. Saccharin Scrubs could tell his _daddy_ what she liked, but Loki did not intend to wait upon yet more lies.

Sneering openly, long past the point of caring who now witnessed his bubbling fury, he darted through the doors and into the elevator marked _Staff Only_ , jabbing at the ground floor button with a digit that sang with pain at the contact.

He couldn’t go home - if _home_ were even what it was now. The stark reality of the lies that awaited him made him dizzy even as he staggered from the elevator and toward what looked like freedom, his mother’s voice on repeat in his skull as it uttered the damning words over and over again.

“ _Oh, I’m O-negative dear, just like your father.”_

_O-Negative. O-Negative. O-Negative_.

He strangled down a howl and strode out through the exit, his stitched and shaking fingers up-thrust against the rain for a cab, tumbling gratefully into the first to draw up alongside him. Barking a quick direction to the driver, he let his eyes flicker shut on a sigh, the rhythmic clicking of the indicators oddly soothing as his head lolled against the headrest.

“Hey, kid, you ok?”

Something like a sob broke free from his throat and he was forced to chuckle, disguising the fragments of his life with abruptly assumed normalcy.

“Oh, fine. Nothing that the total reversal of the fundamental laws of biology wouldn’t fix.”

The cabbie snorted and said something idiotic and concurrent before launching into a spiel about his wife’s hormones since ‘the change’ had kicked in and Loki ground his teeth together.

Just a little longer, he told himself.

He could hold on _just a little longer_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering about Loki's sudden freakout, I did do a ton of research and even spoke to a few handy medical type friends to double check his 'discovery' back in 2012 and now have no idea where those notes are LOL but my understanding is that two O's can't make an A:
> 
> "While there are rare exceptions, the following information on blood types applies to most people. First, let’s look at the ABO blood types. Each person receives an A, B, or O gene from each parent. In this system, the A and B genes are co-dominant and the O gene is recessive. Thus, a person whose genetic type is either AA or AO will have blood type A, those with genetic type BB or BO will have blood type B, and only those genetic type OO will have blood type O. This means that a child with type O blood could have parents with type A, type B, or type O blood (but not with type AB). Conversely, if two parents both have type O blood, all their children will have type O blood."
> 
> The website where I took the above quote agrees (https://www.drgreene.com/qa-articles/are-they-really-my-parents/ ) but hey, there's flat earth sites too, the internet is decidedly sketchy here & there so, if anyone reads this and finds the logic to be flawed then I'm sorry but in this instance we might just have to handwave it a bit to make it make sense for this AU because my brain is way, waaaaaay past the the point where I can think of another way to accidentally figure out you're either adopted or only related to one of your parents etc. 
> 
> Sorry for the uselessness and thank you for going along with it in advance ;) <3


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki runs to Midgard to find his brother.

**Part 2:**

Midgard.

The University _of_ , to be precise, but Midgard nonetheless.

Loki trembled, his hand poised before a door that muffled the music and occasional laughter from within, somehow unable to bring himself to knock even as every cell in his body _ached_ to end this, the longest day of his life.

It had taken roughly four hours by train to get to Midgard from Asgard, then twenty minutes in another cab before, eventually, he’d found the campus, located the damned frat house and subsequently dragged himself to the correct room. Loki had felt every second scrape over him as the last of his meds wore off, his stitched up wounds _screaming_ each time he moved, his head going round and round and...

He knocked.

A voice from within (unknown and wrong, _wrong, WRONG_ ) called something out and footsteps moved toward the door, said door bursting open so fast Loki’s knuckles had only just lost contact as it swung inward. Loki blinked as he found himself gazing slightly downward to meet the disappointed gaze of a somewhat shorter man in a green t-shirt so garish that Loki couldn’t help but wince.

“NOT THE PIZZA!” the garish guy yelled back into the room, the news met by a chorus of groans, one deeper and more resonant (and yes, alright – _beloved_ ) than the rest.

_Thor_? Loki’s mouth shaped the word, his voice cracking long before it cleared his throat and green t-shirt’s eyes flicked over Loki’s injured arm and hands before stepping back to silently usher him in.

The room sported two desks, two armchairs and an assortment of posters and bookshelves, with two mid-sized beds placed at the far ends of the room, both pointed at the large flat screen TV affixed to the wall where a zombie army appeared to be being evaded by the forces sprawled nonchalantly across the floor and beds before it.

“Who was it, then?” called a needed, _necessary_ voice and Loki shook with the effort to not launch himself across the room at the golden figure wielding a PS3 controller as though the fate of the world rested on his ass-kicking skills alone.

“Umm, it was for you, I think?” Loki’s attendant muttered with a self-deprecating smile, but before he had a chance to even consider reciprocating, there came a plasticky thud as the handset abruptly met the floor.

_“LOKI?!”_  his brother roared and Loki staggered under the weight of his relief as finally ( _FINALLY_ ) Thor was rushing toward him, all 6ft 4 of crushing muscle, burnished hair, skin and endless limbs that snatched at Loki like he was nothing more than air and held him up before him, bright blue eyes cataloguing his hurts with an expression of growing horror.

Loki wet his lips. He wanted to _tell him_ , he wanted to say... _everything_.

_Mother and Father have the same blood type but I don’t, and I’m not theirs so I’m not yours, but I need you, and I missed you and why didn’t you come home for summer or Christmas, I needed you, I need you NOW, I love you brother, but I’m NOT your brother, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not..._

All he managed, however, was a single strangled sob before Thor had enfolded him completely, a hand cradling the base of Loki’s skull as he drew him close and tight, his silent cries embedded in the taut stretch of Thor’s throat.

“OUT!” Thor bellowed, and Loki might have scoffed at the scrambling, sycophantic sound as his brother’s friends scrabbled to speedily obey him, had he not been attempting to fully cocoon himself in Thor’s embrace, never so grateful as he was then for his brothers mountain-like proportions.

Within a minute there was nothing but the harsh sounds of Loki’s swallowed sobs and Thor’s rumblings as he ran his hands over Loki’s accumulated hurts, all but dragging him over to the bed when Loki swayed, weak and exhausted, in his grasp.

“Loki... Loki, what has happened? Tell me – are you in pain? Loki, Loki, _speak_ to me, brother!”

Loki’s lips shifted at the hot skin over Thor’s pulse and tried the words out, just to see how much they’d hurt, his tears searing him as he forced the truth free. “ _I’m not your brother_ ,” he whispered to himself and the sound shattered against his teeth, muffled by the roar of Thor’s blood beating beneath his skin and the misery rolling from him in long, racking cries.

Thor crushed him close, so tight that Loki’s head swam and he trembled, allowing himself the luxury of finally falling apart, knowing Thor would hold the world at bay for him, at least for a little while.

_My brother_ , he thought, _mine,_ and he let himself tumble headlong back into the darkness.

++

Sometime later unconsciousness drifted upwards into sleep and Loki mumbled to himself, fisting a sore hand into skin-warmed cotton as voices bled through to slowly coax him from the depths.

“...no, they’ll be ok. I told you, fresh stitches always look worse than they feel. He’ll be fine just so long as he doesn’t pull at them or anything.”

“Mother said he fell and put his hands through a glass cupboard door.”

A hissing noise came from somewhere nearby and Loki pushed his face deeper into the hot, rough comfort of Thor’s throat, making mental notes to tease him about the scratchy growth of his new beard once he was fully awake, humming softly as Thor ran a large but gentle palm over his hair.

“Must have been fuck-nasty at the time, man. No wonder he’s so out of it, he must’ve lost a few pints, easy. I’m amazed he made it all the way here to you before he blacked out, really.”

A low, discontented noise rose from Thor’s chest, and Loki curled further into him, his senses sharpening as his brother squeezed him tight and swallowed hard.

“He should not have had to run this far just to find me...” He broke off as a sudden, momentary blare of Queen’s ‘ _Princes of the Universe_ ’ sounded from nearby. Letting out a heavy sigh, Thor slowly, and ever so gently, eased himself from under Loki’s huddled form, the mattress shifting as he rose up to storm across the room. “Father again. Keep an eye on Loki while I tell him _one last time_ that he’s not coming home tonight.”

Loki huddled further into the rucked up bedding beneath him, considering whether or not it was worth struggling the rest of the way into wakefulness when the lure of sleep was still so strong, when someone arrived with a bang.

“Brucie! What’s with the holdup? I’ve been waiting on you and Fabio out there for like three hours, ok maybe only 40 minutes, but once you miss the beginning of a movie, it’s like missing the whole thing and – whoa. Who’s the dead guy?”

A long-suffering sigh came from the other bed, _Bruce’s_ bed, Loki realised upon hearing the oft-mentioned roommate’s name, and he slowed his breath, feeling the newcomer standing over him.

“Keep it down will you, Tony? He’s exhausted and I told Thor I’d watch over him.”

“Didn’t know Thor’d officially switched teams...rude, really, not to tell me. Hmm, this guy’s not bad looking for a corpse, actually. Lil bit emo twinkie round the edges, but do-able. I’d definitely... _whoa_ – is that _blood_?”

A stumbling sound then and a squeak as Tony, likely, hit the other bed, hard.

“Seriously, do _not_ wake him. That’s Thor’s kid brother. He fell through some glass and rabbited all the way down here from Asgard the second they were done stitching him up. His lips were blue from shock and blood loss when he got here. He’s frikkin’ _exhausted,_ man, and Thor will just straight up beat you senseless if you bother that kid...”

“Ok, ok! Relax rage issues, I’m not gonna pester Blondie’s boy-toy. I just didn’t know he even _had_ a brother, let alone Sleeping Beauty there.”

“Yeah, they have a weird kind of relationship.” Loki tensed minutely, already deciding he _loathed_ Thor’s peer group in general. “They talk once a month or something on the phone, but I don’t think they ever really see each other. I mean, I’ve never seen him up here before and from what he’s said I think Thor only ever saw him once a year or so. Different schools, different lives or something. Same house, same parents and shit just... _apart_.”

“Sounds... shitty.”

Loki bristled, baring his teeth, hidden against the comforter, and thought of sinking them into the flesh belonging to that sanctimonious _FUCKER_.

They had no idea. That _once a year_ they so casually mocked was _precious beyond words_ to Loki.

Thor was two years older, already enrolled in the best day schools and clubs by the time Loki had turned three, sent away to their father’s prized boarding school by the time he was six and _absent_ , always absent, a distant presence when he briefly returned for Christmas, a name on camp postcards come summer, _every_ summer... until Loki turned twelve.

Loki’d been between schools, expelled for hacking the antiquated computer systems and releasing all the test results to the students (amongst other things). He’d been kicking his heels as the summer started with Odin’s money not quite yet done buying his way into yet another prestigious academy, wishing for _once_ he’d thought to let Odin send him away as they had Thor and then... there he’d been.

Fourteen years old and already en route to being as tall as a house, all relentless force and golden hair and he’d come home for _Loki_.

Loki had been mortified that this laughing, rumbling stranger had been told all his varied misdeeds, but Thor had thought them wondrous beyond measure, delighting in Loki’s many tricks he’d apparently missed over the years. That first summer had been _bliss_ , the hot, long months spent together finally convincing Loki he was whole, so much so, in fact, that he’d clung, weeping, to Thor’s already flourishing shoulders come September. Loki had begged to be allowed to go with him, but Odin had already secured him a place at a school that he’d actually wished to attend, no less.

Thor had been utterly _required_ back at his school, carrying the entirety of the football team on his back, apparently, and so Loki had been left alone once more, enrolled in so many extracurricular activities his head had spun, which had been a pleasantly new sensation after several school years of crushing boredom. Slowly, as the months had gone by, he’d begun to forget his golden summer with Thor, both of them away at Christmas (snowboarding in Switzerland and travelling to Japan respectively), separate once more, until August came again.

Thor had walked through the house, pausing only to kiss their ( _ha!_ ) mother before bellowing mightily for Loki, tucked away in whatever room he’d happened to be studying in and, within seconds of being on the receiving end of that puppy-like grin, the time had just melted away. August had been _theirs_ , a time of camping trips and pitiful pranks upon Thor’s insipid followers, sleeping knotted together in tents and sleeping bags under the stars, and so had it been ever since – until the September Thor had started at Midgard.

“Y’know,” Tony said, ponderingly, his somewhat still-strident tones cutting through Loki’s reverie, “I’d have never known Twilight here was family. They don’t look anything alike, huh?”

Loki opened his eyes. “Alright.” He grunted, pulling himself upright on palms that screamed, glaring at the startled pair on the opposing bed. “I have no idea who you are, but that constant flapping noise you’ve been producing with your face has woken me so, currently, I despise you.”

He looked past a momentarily dumbstruck Tony to the green-shirted guy from before. Bruce, it would seem.

“I hate to be a burden, Bruce, is it? But my brother appears to be aggravatingly absent and frankly, I am all out of patience. I, therefore, require the use of a shower and, I’m thinking, some sort of plastic bag to cover these wretched stitches of mine.”

Bruce blinked at him, Tony still apparently muted and Loki heaved a longsuffering sigh as he eased himself to his now not inconsiderable height. “Well?” he prompted.

A thankfully short time later, he was being ushered into his the bathroom with two plastic bags taped over the more serious of his stitches, and a (hopefully) clean towel pushed into his hands.

“Call out if you get dizzy,” Bruce ordered as the finale to his unbroken few minutes of speech. The subject had been Loki himself, the severity of his wounds, and how Bruce would be able to tell if he messed with his stitches. The otherwise seemingly passive young man was quietly aggressive and apparently unable to flip the soon-to-be-doctor switch back into ‘Off’ position, closing the door behind him with a click.

“So,” Loki heard him say somewhat bemusedly to Tony once the door had closed between them, “he’s kind of a dick.”

“Yup,” Tony shot back near instantly. “I kinda like him.”

Loki pressed the borrowed towel to his face for a moment, muffling his reluctant amusement and, still smirking, he began the slow and painful process of undressing.

++

Washing the build-up of cold sweat and gritty, browned blood off of him went a long way to making Loki feel human again. He sniffed containers until he found the one he felt smelled the most like it could be Thor’s before liberally coating himself with it, hoping that quantity might balance out the clumsy press of his bound hands against his usually pristine skin.

He emerged from the small, steam-filled room with his hair combed straight, a tidy black flow down to just the top of his spine, the longest he had ever had it despite the lure of his brother’s own gloried mane. He’d a white towel twisted, sarong-style, at his waist, moulding itself faithfully to the long, lean lines of him. He had no interest in either of Thor’s somewhat undersized friends, but it was always delightful to tease.

Sauntering free of the doorway, Loki couldn’t help but enjoy the laser-like swipe of Tony's eyes across his skin. “I know, I clean up nicely for – what was it – an _emo twinkie_?” he drawled, quirking an eyebrow even as he bit back a smirk at Bruce’s bark of surprised laughter. He opened his mouth to deliver another riposte for his earlier hurts, only for a gasp to break free at the sensation of large hands stilling his hips, holding him steady as Thor stepped close behind him.

“When,” his brother rumbled, low and somehow ferocious, “did you get _tattooed_?”

Loki let his smirk run riot then, tilting back into Thor’s grasp to turn his head and say, almost against the rippling heat of Thor’s skin, “I think that would be... not _quite_ six months ago, making mine a lot more legal than the two years shy of the majority _you_ faked, dear brother, to get yours.”

He turned within Thor’s clasp to brush a plastic and bandage wrapped hand over the site of Thor’s own beloved body art – a hammer at his right bicep – and smiled up into his brother’s ( _no, NOT_ his brother’s) face.

“Relax, it’s only henna, I’ve had to reapply it a fair few times now. I promised Mother I’d try it out before I committed to anything, but the second I turn eighteen it’s turning permanent, so if your plan is to embrace hypocrisy then you've got a month or so to perfect it.”

Thor’s focus had shifted, the tattoo resting behind Loki’s heart, scrawled just atop his left shoulder blade, long forgotten as Thor traced his hands up from where he’d gripped Loki’s hips, smoothing up over his ribcage and chest, to rest heavily at his shoulders. Blue eyes flickered rapidly back and forth over Loki’s own, now barely two inches lower than Thor’s where once he’d stood a full head shorter. “Just look at you,” he husked. “You’ve grown.”

Loki swallowed, breathing slowly and carefully, lest Thor shatter him unintentionally. He smiled, his lips thinning, an eyebrow quirking upward as he glanced down and away. “Well,” he said briskly, “two years will do that.”

Thor flinched, his hands squeezing unconsciously at the fragile stretch of Loki’s collarbone.

“I… Surely it has not been so long. I thought... I am _sorry_ , Loki.” He looked so appalled and abashed that Loki had to bite back a smile at the reminder of his brother's all too easily-pricked skin.

“For someone who so closely resembles the proverbial brick shithouse, brother, you are decidedly too easy to take shots at. You’re right, of course. It _hasn’t_ been that long, merely a little over eighteen months.”  Loki smiled, widely this time as he twisted the knife even as he sought to ease Thor’s anguish somewhat and Thor chuckled, giving Loki a little slap before cupping his cheek.

“You sound more like Father every day. I’ve missed that sharp, silver tongue of yours.” He laughed softly, his palm a rough, searing anchor as Loki rocked slightly, shaken by the bolt that shot through him as Thor smiled, just for _him,_ once more.

“Oh yes?” he purred quickly, batting his eyelashes and pushing just the very point of his tongue towards Thor, past the sharp flash of his teeth, “Give us a kiss, then.”

For a brief moment, Thor’s eyes – _bluer than Loki’s own, like the sky over the seas_ – widened, but then he was roaring with laughter, dragging Loki close once more to crush him tight against his chest, pressing a resounding kiss against the smooth plane of Loki’s forehead before beaming down the now-scant inches between their faces. “A welcome kiss then, brother, and one for each of your hurts as well, should you wish it.”

Loki let his eyes flicker shut, unable to bite back the reluctant grin that broke forth at Thor’s effortless, joyous rumble of a voice, letting the weight of his own clouded mind rest upon the broad palm still cradling him.

“So, I’m guessing they were both raised at the Renaissance Fair? Or do they just _always_ talk like that?” Loki rolled his eyes beneath their lids at Tony’s sudden drawl before pulling reluctantly away from Thor’s embrace to face their audience.

“Trust me, it’d make perfect sense if you’d met their dad. He came to get Thor moved in, his first day here. I had to fight every instinct not to kneel every time he spoke.” Bruce laughed.

“Kinky.”

Thor shook his head in a parody of distress, but he chuckled as he released his hold and Loki burned briefly at the evident affection Thor held for his friends.

“Loki, these are my friends. Bruce Banner, who is kind enough to share this room with me, and Tony Stark, who is kind enough to swing by from his room near incessantly, having discovered that Bruce here speaks his garbled language.”

Stark snorted. “Quoth Shakespeare.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Loki drawled, his quick smile mostly for Thor’s benefit, even as it turned wry under Stark’s abruptly predatory gaze. “Now, assuming by the fact I’ve not already been frogmarched out of here and that Heimdall isn’t about to break down the door...“ He paused, raising a brief eyebrow at Thor, reassured by his head shake and ignoring the small, unhappy twist to his lips. “No? Excellent. Well then, not that this semi-nude social interaction isn’t thrilling the very heart of me, but I do wonder if I could trouble you for a change of clothes?”

Thor rolled his eyes, clapping a hand to Loki’s shoulder before turning away to rummage through a none-too-neatly packed drawer.

“No rush.” Stark smarmed with what he apparently thought was a winning smirk, his cocky head toss just cavalier enough to draw Loki’s eye. Reminiscent, in fact, of Thor at his most boorish.

His lips widening just enough to show his teeth, Loki crossed his arms over his chest as he watched the shorter man’s eyes map him from head to toe and back again “Oh dear. Don’t tell me this sort of crass display usually works for you?” He mocked him gently and Tony’s eyes narrowed before his teeth flashed again, brilliant within the darker frame of his carefully maintained goatee.

“Always,” he shot back, and Banner cleared his throat, quickly and repeatedly, affecting a deep and abiding interest in his feet.

“Drop it, drop it, might wanna be dropping it,” he singsonged _sotto voice_ and Loki’s gaze narrowed before he realised the rustling behind him had ceased. Thor shoved past, soft sweatpants and a wife-beater pushed into Loki’s hands unceremoniously as Thor moved to stand between Stark and Loki as he stepped into said sweats with somewhat more of a display of lean thigh beneath his towel than if he hadn’t suspected there to be a pair of dark eyes still upon him.

Unwrapping the towel from about his waist, Loki drew the drawstrings tight, sliding his brothers ridiculously overlarge red top over his slimmer, paler torso with a contented sigh. “Thank you, that’s much better.”

“You prefer to go it _commando_ huh? My kind of guy.”

Stark’s joke was weak, at best, and not nearly as invasive as his earlier attempts at an introductory eye-fuck, but Loki still dipped his head, biting back a smile as Thor all but leapt into action. He snatched Tony up by the back of his t-shirt and neatly thrust him from the room, following him out on a low roar of inventively intertwined threats.

Loki let his mouth twist into a vague smirk, meeting Banner’s eye before he could help himself. “I _did_ tell him to drop it – you heard me, right?”

Loki snorted, immediately countering the inelegance of it with a regal head tilt and a twisted, amused smile. “Indeed,” he purred before reclining across Thor’s bed, crooking one eyebrow upward as his brother re-entered the room, scowling mightily.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, gentlemen,” Loki spoke swiftly, his words filling the air before Thor’s protective instincts could retreat into a fully-fledged temper, “Earlier, was not there mention made of _pizza_?”

++

Loki came to with a start, his chest heaving, sweating profusely as he shook and gasped within what felt like the confines of a furnace, his wits gradually returning to him on a sharp stab of pain from his wrist as he dragged it somewhat too-quickly across the bedding.

He blinked up at a sickly, yellow-lit ceiling, the streetlamp’s light spilling inward, and he focused on it, cataloguing his surroundings as his day rushed back at him in a surge of memories intermingled with the awful accuracies of his nightmare.

His arm stung, painful as he clenched his fist as best he could at the recollection of his accident and his brain briefly caught and held upon the notion of strong painkillers helpfully sought out by Bruce, his brother’s roommate and...

His brother.

Loki turned his head against the pillow to regard the tangled sprawl of limbs atop and between his own as Thor muttered into his pillow and reflexively squeezed Loki tighter to him. Tears burned behind Loki’s lashes as he clenched his eyes shut, attempting to divest himself of the weighty arms wrapped about him as he slid carefully upright, reaching out for the bottle of water and his painkillers set helpfully atop the nightstand.

He sat for a moment, fighting the spasming lump at the back of his throat, attempting control before he was able to lift the bottle to his lips. He drank deeply before he even recalled the tablets, swallowing two as an afterthought as Thor reached out in his sleep for him, a large hot hand finding his hip and resting there, brand-like with its heat and implied ownership.

_My brother_ , he’d repeatedly said as he’d run careful fingers over Loki’s many hurts, oblivious of the cracks running straight to his core and threatening to shatter him with every breath, _My poor little brother._

Trembling, Loki had kept his eyes fixed on the screen where Bruce and Clint (from the room opposite) had waged war. Having bitten his tongue almost raw, he’d turned his body into Thor’s, letting his brother’s broad shoulders obstruct the escalating hurt and horror for just a little while, just long enough to allow the pizza to settle in his stomach, let the tablets kick in, let himself drift again, safe in his brothers charge...

A tiny sound escaped his lips, a strangled hiccough of misery forcing past his clenched teeth as the nightmare knowledge that _they weren’t his family – NONE OF THEM. The words_ wrote themselves again and again across his heart and mind, the negation of Thor’s support burning into his tongue, acid-like, each time the erroneous words were spoken.

_My brother... My brother... My brother..._

Loki’s teeth failed to contain another squeak of grief and he burrowed quickly back into the stifling heat of Thor’s embrace, too roughly if his sham-sibling’s grunt upon impact was anything to go by, but he couldn’t seem to still his heaving sides, his chest tight with the rising tide of rage and loss. He clung, frantic, lungs sobbing for a clear, unburdened breath, his sore hands clawing into the sleep-warmed fabric, as pressed himself as tight to Thor as he could.

“Loki, _Loki_...” Thor murmured; his voice heavy with concern and sleep all at once, “It’s alright, it’s just the shock and all the drugs, a nightmare, it’s alright, my brother. I have you now, I have you...”

Loki allowed himself the inadequacy of incoherence – just this once – muttering fitfully against his brother’s body of a bad dream and of pain and whimpered pathetically (the latter being sadly not feigned for effect) and found himself shuddering with something oddly like relief as Thor crushed them even further together. A cold sweat broke out across Loki’s skin even as the surge of welcome body-heat verged upon oppressive, his brother’s iron-like limbs crushing him yet closer and a hot, hard kiss was pushed against his brow, his cheek, his jaw... _his mouth._

Loki made a short, soft sound of surprise, cut off by the sudden exhalation that burst free as Thor continued to pepper forceful, yet somehow kitten-gentle, kisses all across his face. An enormous palm cradled his throat as fingers routinely speared themselves through the terror-drenched tendrils of hair at his nape, crooning the whole time softly, “ _Loki, poor Loki, my poor Loki..._ ” over and over 'til the rhythmic huff of them against his skin and the thrum of Thor’s seemingly super-powered, puppy-like heart lulled him into something approaching peace.

He woke only once more before dawn, Thor attempting to slide stealthily back into bed beside him, and Loki murmured his name softly, rolling over to be gathered up, close and safe against his heart once more. It was only upon waking the next morning, alone, as the shower ran quietly in the bathroom, that he remembered the warm, thick press of not-quite hardness against his belly as he’d sighed, slack with exhaustion, and snuggled closer, Thor’s lips hot and petal soft against his brow once more.

He shivered at the recollection, waiting for the wave of revulsion to roll over him, cold and clammy. Instead, when Thor returned, freshly washed and dressed and smiling _just for him_ , Loki simply pressed himself hard into his embrace, wordless tears streaking down his clenched jaw at the arrival of his father’s driver, and wondered just when his life had become so unutterably _fucked up_.


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki deals with his reluctant homecoming and a surprise guest.

**Part 3:**

Loki stumbled as he crossed the threshold into his bedroom, yawning and bone-weary despite the hours of sleep he’d already accrued during the achingly long drive home.

His father’s driver-cum-bodyguard had come for him with his off-putting, almost golden gaze resting heavily upon him via the rear-view mirror nearly all the way home, long before he’d had time to reconcile himself to the thought of facing his _parents_ , his eagerly waiting _false_ family. When he’d tried to turn his building terror and fury toward Thor all that had come out had been soft whines and a swallowed sob and Thor had rubbed his hand in gentle, steadying circles over the quivering curve of Loki’s spine as he’d hunched into his embrace. He whispered to him soothingly, telling him over and over he could call him anytime, _visit_ anytime, that he was always welcome – _ALWAYS, brother_ – until Loki had nodded, straightening even as he kept his gaze low, knuckling quickly at his eyes and loathing the joint presence of Bruce and the steadily more despised Heimdall somewhere behind Thor’s breadth.

Smiling reassuringly, Thor had stripped the leather cord from over his head to settle it over Loki’s, and Thor’s room key had fallen to rest, already warm, against Loki’s sternum, dangling there, strangely heavy as it swung against his skin.

“There now.” Thor had smiled, puppy-like but for the ferocity of oddly stern gaze, “You can just show up whenever you need, with nothing but the train ride between us.”

Somehow bashful with the open invite hovering against his heart, Loki had nodded, his eyes fixed resolutely elsewhere as Thor had turned to task Heimdall with some message for their ( _Thor’s_ ) father and Loki had found himself faced with an embarrassed, but gently smiling, Bruce.

“What he said, your brother, it’s really cool, man. I mean Clint and Tony practically live here anyway, and you’re way quieter.  It’s nice, so y’know... we casa, you casa... or some shit like that, anyway.”

Loki had returned Bruce’s awkward, tight smile, meaning to say some form of ‘ _thank you’_ etc., at the very least for the med students deft addressing of his injuries the night before, but when he’d opened his mouth, all Loki had managed was, “He’s not my brother.”

Then, with a brief, clammy handshake (worlds away from meeting Bruce’s now confused and quizzical gaze) he’d turned himself over into Heimdall’s quietly watchful care and an unknowing stretch of _hours_ of silence before him as Heimdall had not spoken from that point until they’d drawn up before the house. A curtain twitched at the window the instant the engine died, a sure sign of his mother’s vigil, and Heimdall said slowly then, “You worried your mother and father, you know.”

And Loki had nodded, weary beyond belief.

“Yes. I know,” he’d muttered before being swept from the car on a tide of recrimination, remonstration and remorse. His mother wound her arms tightly about his neck as though she could anchor him in place long enough to both scold and soothe him all at once. His father’s shorter but still oddly oak tree-like bearing had filled the bare spaces between them then until he was so firmly crushed to his faux family’s bosom that Loki marvelled that he could even draw breath with which to reassure them that he was both safe and sorry in turn.

After hours of this continued lead-like love and thickly layered lies, Loki had finally staggered away, heavy with the weight of lost privileges and at least a month’s worth of grounding. He snorted, traipsing up the stairs, _as though he dared chance visiting Thor during spring break, he’d only just got over being dropped like a hot rock the last time, he’d be damned if he was going to catch the live show_ , to stand, blearily regarding Sandu from the door of his room as his friend abruptly stepped into view from his apparent hiding place within Loki’s en suite.

“Your mother told my grandmother that you’d be home today. I uh, I thought I’d stop by and make sure you’re ok.”

Loki let his gaze slide obviously over the open drawers at his bedside and the vague disarray of his formerly neat desk. “Ye-es,” he drawled, smirking. “Clearly you’ve been just _frantic_ with worry for me, my dear Sandu, with all the desperate rummaging through my stuff, looking for your ID for that party – tonight isn’t it? – was just to bide your time, no doubt?”

Sandu’s slim, coffee-coloured shoulders sagged beneath his shirt and Loki bit back a chuckle at how openly his friend broadcasted his defeat.

“Al _right_ ,” he groaned, “Look, your mum did tell me you’d be back, but she also said you were off with that bloody Barbie-doll brother of yours. I didn’t know if you’d be back or not and I just _have_ to get into ‘ _$kandal’_ tonight or I’ll never get in with fucking Killian or Hammer or anyone, and I’m sick of them lording it all over the show when I _know_ I could do way better and--“

Loki huffed, cutting Sandu off with just the merest puff of exasperated air as he crossed the room to open a drawer at his desk, lifting free an envelope addressed directly to _San_ and tossed it to his gaping, supposed-friend with a long-suffering stare. “It wasn’t hidden, you blithering idiot, this is _business_. You paid me for a service, and thus I have _provided_ said service, to almost the best of my abilities no less, so hiding it from you, and thus rendering you incapable of recommending me, discreetly of course, to all of your needy little friends, would seem rather less than brilliant, would it not?”

Sandu managed to both look utterly humiliated and shrug nonchalantly all while ripping open the envelope, his face lighting with glee as he took in his perfect, if false, ID.

“This, this is fucking amazing, man – it looks just like yours!”

Loki smiled, a quick baring of his teeth past his exhaustion as he sank into the swivel chair at his desk and sprawled there, seriously considering just tipping back his head and letting sleep take him.

“Almost,” he corrected gently, being unwilling to risk his own masterpieces of false information being lumped in with the better than average but still _lesser_ product he marketed to his peers, glancing up as Sandu moved to stand before him.

“Your hand,” he said softly, dark eyes heavy on Loki’s skin, “does it hurt?”

“Exceedingly,” Loki bit out, shifting in his chair with a sigh and longing for solitude and his bed. “Nothing a little quiet and a veritable smorgasbord of painkillers won’t cure, I assure you.” His brow quirked up as Sandu rested a soft, slightly moist hand upon the uninjured section of his forearm.

“You’ve helped me so much with this Loki. I’m so grateful and, and it’s my fault you got hurt. I just, I wish there was something I could do. For you.”

Loki bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as his friend sank slowly to his knees before him, leaning ever so slightly into the space left by Loki’s own parted thighs. “Well, by all means,” he all but purred, shifting his hips forward in his seat as he waved a casual, permissive hand between them. “Never let it be said I refused a man the chance to repay his debts.”

He tipped his head back and clenched one long-fingered, somewhat clumsily-bandaged hand over the armrest of his chair as Sandu chuckled, leaning immediately in to nuzzle at Loki’s groin as his hands sought to free and please him.

This was easy, this was something he did from time to time to cure the ache, scratch the itch, fill the void, et cetera - never _wholly_ satisfying but welcome nonetheless, and _normal_ somehow, the heat of Sandu’s mouth upon his flesh, familiar from learning each other, first from boredom, then calculated hedonism and now, seemingly, as repayment.

He clenched his eyes shut and arched against the chair back as the pleasurable sensations built in him, his less damaged hand creeping up over his chest to quiver at his throat before sliding back down to tangle in the slim leather lace hanging there. Loki gripped hard as abrupt, unbidden need soared through him, the body-warmed key all but cutting into his palm as he squeezed it _tight_ , shaking and wracked with raw, almost blinding satisfaction as he emptied himself into his slightly choking comrade's throat.

Sandu stood after a moment, still coughing and wiping his smirking mouth in such a way that, had he had the energy, Loki would have found impossible to not punish him for. He resolved to hack his Twitter account later on and post something suitably damning as he fastened his fly with shaking hands.

“Seems like you really needed that, huh?” Sandu smarmed triumphantly and Loki flipped him off with a sneer, biting back a grin of his own as his admittedly often lousy friend made his way back to the window where he had apparently gained entrance. “I’ll let you know how many of my ‘needy little friends’ will be clamouring at your door for one of these babies tomorrow, yeah?”

“As you will.” Loki slurred, and Sandu chuckled before dropping away into the night, a neat trick Loki had often envied, his own melodramatic tendencies often getting in the way of his ideally less noted exits. He groaned, levering himself out of his chair to stagger heroically to his bed where he proceeded to gratefully fall face down into his pillows, asleep long before the indented, almost burning outline of Thor’s key faded from his flesh.

 


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki turns 18 and he knows exactly what he wants (not like that... ok a little like that).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going for a bogof update this week because I hadn't realised how tidgy part 3 was and both parts were ready (ta muchly DysonRules yet again *MWAH*) xx

**Part 4:**

Time passed, barely.

It wasn’t nearly enough to even begin to heal the jagged shards where his sense of self and wellbeing used to be. It was just enough, however, to dampen the howling rage that simmered in Loki’s gut each time his father sought to advise him, his mother to embrace him, or when the role of _son_ needed to be filled. Each time he had to step out of the shadows, he wondered if today was the day they might admit the truth or turn away from him; the question was always left unanswered.

His six-week sentence (ending just shy of his birthday, as though they knew they had no real hold on him) was both torturously fulfilled and entirely unheeded, his so-called parents remaining blissfully unaware of just how often Loki snuck out after he supposedly went to bed. He chose instead to while away the midnight hours in a variety of clubs and bars, his moonlight bright skin and smile attracting men like moths, as they bitched and fought each other for the chance to buy him drinks, to dance with him, to _touch_ him.

Sometimes he even let them.

But it was all just so _tedious_ , the countdown to his eighteenth birthday scored into his nerve endings and he quivered with adrenaline the nearer it drew, the closer he seemingly got to Thor by just the merest _thought_ of it. He waited for the weight, the same sense of damning blame and rejection to descend over the glow of Thor in his mind, to taint his heart’s rapid, rabid beating for his brother, but it seemed that the further away he felt like shoving each parent, the more desperately close he wanted to be to Thor.

His fingers drummed against his thigh in class as the key swung beneath his shirt, and he awoke trembling, night after night, with the phantom weight of his supposed sibling’s arm about him, twitchy at just the thought of him, eager to be with him just like their summers of old. Finally, _FINALLY,_ his big day arrived, the formality of his reaching his eighteenth year now seeming positively humdrum, had it not been for the actuality of what he could now do without fear of being forcibly drawn back to the homestead.

His mother made his favourite dinner and he managed to spare her a smile for the effort, shoving _down_ on the wave of hurt cresting within, her love hurting him as much (if not more) than the lie.

Within three hours of returning from school, he had eaten dinner with his purported parents, striving, during this naïve act of self-inflicted torture, to appear as open to the truth and reality of a sometimes surprising world as he could. He became slowly more furious when it seemed they really had no intention, despite having reached his majority, of sharing with him who he actually was. Loki then showered, packed and presented himself before them, stating firmly that he would be spending his birthday weekend with Thor and swiftly walking out before either of them had the chance to react.

He spent the journey enduring a positively agonising mixture of nerves and excitement, almost unable to sit still in his seat. He considered both his bizarre desire to simply be by Thor’s side and the warring urge to utterly rub it in his face that he was now old enough to do precisely as he pleased, including get his choice of design etched into his very skin.

He was admitted at the frat’s front door, sped up the stairs and was slipping his key into the lock mere seconds after knocking, emboldened by the joint shout of _YEAH_ from the apparently accumulated occupants, swinging the door wide to beam magnanimously at a surprised but smiling Bruce, seemingly en route to open the door again.

“Hey, it’s the birthday boy! Right?” He laughed and Loki froze, unaccountably touched that Thor had seen fit to share the information with people Loki had absolutely no reason to care about. He stood absolutely still in the doorway when Thor all but threw himself at him.

He lifted Loki off his feet and swung him in a wide (if protesting) circle, laughing joyously as he set him down again, only to crush him to his chest.

“What are you _doing_ here? I was just about to call you!” he thundered directly into Loki’s ear, and he gasped as Thor’s arms tightened to an almost painful extent, as able to feel his brother’s heartbeat as he was his own, laughing breathlessly even as his head swam. He was released and swung around at high speed so that Thor could gesture dramatically at where a large bag lay half-packed atop a mound of clothing on Thor’s bed.

“I was going to catch the first train tomorrow, I would have been with you by noon!”

Loki shrugged, blushing as he idly shoved at Thor’s stone-like shoulder. “Well, maybe I couldn’t wait that long,” he murmured, grinning as he again took in the chaos that had been Thor’s attempt at packing, his golden hair pulled back in the ponytail that Loki had often mockingly associated with Thor’s ‘ _determined face_ ’ and allowed himself to be drawn back in for another (gentler) hug.

“Long distance relationship?” a hushed voice queried, only to be answered by a snort as Loki turned his head, regarding Tony and a taller, blonder companion.

“Only in a manner of speaking. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Snow White there is Thor’s brother, not his fuck-toy.”

Bruce dropped his forehead into his palm and Thor straightened from his full body clasp of Loki’s form with something like a growl, and so Loki laughed, dangerously bright and uncaring as he moved forward. He took in Stark’s proprietary proximity to the seemingly new, and admittedly very handsome, addition, his almost fully-healed hand out toward the stranger before Tony had time to prevent it.

“Please excuse Tony’s rudeness, he always forgets his manners when desperately trying to convince someone to sleep with him. I’m Loki, and you are?”

The blond blinked and the air in the room seemed to freeze. Thor stilled, Bruce appeared to withdraw all the way inside himself from across the room, and Stark took such a sharp, deep breath that Loki wondered at there being any air left in the place.

“Steve, um.” The blond – _Steve_ – coughed. “I’m, I’m Steve Rogers. Tony he... that is, Tony’s just showing me around. I, he... so, it’s your birthday, huh?”

Loki took pity, unaccountably abashed by the light pink blush burning Steve’s cheeks as much as by the contrasting pallor of Tony’s.

“Indeed.” He smiled, releasing Steve’s hand before turning to Tony with a shit-eating grin, “Truce?”

“Never,” Tony mumbled but put his hand out all the same, attempting to crush Loki’s knuckles as they matched gazes before Thor deftly separated them with a heavy hand to each of their shoulders.

“Come now, this is time for a celebration, not a competition!” He drew Loki back against his chest and looped heavy arms about him as he smiled happily at each of them in turn, “We must go out! I know of a place that will let us in without ID-ing Loki and--”

Loki brandished his ID before his brother’s nose, smirking at Tony’s appreciative murmur. “I have no intention of being treated as a child this weekend, Thor. I want my tattoo, I want it _tonight_ and then afterwards I want to get utterly _wrecked_.” He turned in Thor’s arms and smiled directly into his face, “What think you, brother?”

Thor smirked and quirked a brow toward the others, his gaze alight with enough mischievous intent that Loki’s breath seemed to stutter in his chest Tony all but roared his approval, clapping Steve on his well-muscled shoulder. “Oh, it is SO _ON_. C’mon Home-School, we’ve got to get you suited UP!”

He dragged Steve from the room on a whoop and Bruce grinned at Loki. “You alright with the rest of us tagging along? Tony’ll sulk forever if he can’t come now he’s got himself all worked up for it.”

Shrugging, magnanimous in his starring role, Loki elbowed Thor, tone stern even as he winked. “As long as I don’t get ditched so _he_ can get laid I don’t care who comes along, I’m just here for me.”

Loki turned to Thor as a large hand cupped his nape. “I’m not going to _ditch_ you,” Thor rumbled with a frown before bringing his other hand up to cradle Loki’s jaw in his palm. “Tonight – this whole _weekend_ – is all going to be about _you._ All I want is what _you_ want, alright little brother?

Loki smiled and nodded, excited and uneasy all at once and wished he knew how to ignore the fluttering within him whenever Thor looked at him with such blind affection.

“Ok,” he whispered, “What I want it is, then.”

++

Loki bit back a whine, turning his head against Thor’s thigh and clenching his fingers _tight_ in his brother’s grip.

“Nearly done,” the tattooist said serenely and Loki thought strongly about stabbing him. “It’s often the way with you milk-pale sort, it can get real sensitive here above the blade, but you’ll find it’ll go right off in time. In a few days you’ll just think you caught some bad sun or something. Well, I mean as long as you don’t go messing with it or anything.”

Thor thanked the _sadist_ in a low voice before smoothing his palm over Loki’s hair, brushing it back from his brow on a soft chuckle. “Well, you would have it all done all at once, brother.”

Loki turned his head and _bit_ , his teeth pushing deeply into the meat of Thor’s thigh despite the denim in between, resenting his support as much as he disliked the mild mockery.

_Brother, always BROTHER_.

Loki was laid out across a low bench with the tattoo artist sat above and to the side of him, stencilling and now inking his beloved design directly into his skin for just over an hour now. Thor had drawn his chair up close so that Loki could rest his head atop his thigh should he wish to, his thick fingers spearing through his hair in pleasant counterpoint to the needle buzzing in his skin and Loki’s body just didn’t know which way to burn for the better.

“I want it tonight _,_ I don’t _care_ if it hurts,” he hissed, “it’s important to me, you great, smug _git_.”

Tony sniggered from across the room and Loki felt oddly grateful for the peanut gallery aspect of it all. There was something to the bite of the fresh ink seeping into his raw skin, something sullen and sweet under his skin that made him shiver, made him _desperate_ to leap up off the bench and run as far as he could from his brother's blue-bright gaze.

“Don’t worry kid, second we’re out of this place we’ll find a worm with your name on it, and then you’ll be so buzzed you’ll get like eight more tats and you won’t even notice.”

Loki laughed feebly and Thor brushed his hair back again, both of them chuckling at Steve’s admonishing tone, “Now there’s a good plan, Stark, get the minor completely inebriated to the point where he causes himself further pain. _Good call.”_

“Less of the minor, thank you.” Loki slurred, shifting his hips against the bench and trembling slightly at the jitters settling low in his belly. Thor brushed the sweep of his raven black hair back from his face again, ducking down to almost press his lips to Loki’s ear.

“Just ride it out, brother.” His voice was soft, for once, hushed as a strand of his own golden hair fell forward to tickle at Loki’s skin, hushed as he whispered, “It’s alright. I got hard when I got mine, too.”

Loki flinched, inadvertently bucking his hips into the bench, his eyes and jaw clenching tight shut on a hiss, as the tattooist reprimanded him soundly and Thor chuckled, apologising softly as he stroked the curve of Loki’s skull. Loki swallowed and shook for a second, mortified and somewhat sickeningly amused even as his body screamed and sang to him in turn.

“Stark?” he managed to grind out, smiling thinly, “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now.”

++

“Tho-or,” Loki whimpered petulantly as the room steadily shifted from blue into gold, and his head swam and spun in time with his quavering breaths, “Quit it, c’mon. I’m _sleepy..._ ”

He mashed his face further into Thor’s pillow and breathed a long-suffering sigh through his nose at his brother’s soft, drunken chuckle, pinned in place by Thor’s position atop his hips as he ignored all of Loki’s whined entreaties and continued his admittedly sloppy ministrations.

They had staggered in barely thirty minutes before, with Bruce tottering directly to his bed where he now slept soundly (loudly too, his snores nothing short of monstrous) fully clothed atop his covers, with Loki sprawled, freshly showered and clad in pyjama pants, face down upon Thor’s sheets.

He’d had plans, for food, drink, possibly even dancing (no matter how his stomach flipped with fear at the thought of Thor dancing with a girl or panic at the idea of Thor dancing with _him_ ) but instead they’d all spent most of the night drinking and laughing their way companionably through Loki’s body art. Finally achieved, there had been just enough time for them to stagger out to the best late night sushi restaurant (Tony _promised_ ) in all of Midgard and while Loki couldn’t precisely recall how much he’d had or hadn’t liked the food, the _sake_ had been top notch.

Thor’s fingers stroked carefully over the raw, ink-dark lines of his tattoo, soft and slick with the aftercare ‘butter’ the tattooist had provided along with soft squares of gauze so that Loki might sleep the night through without becoming one with the sheets. Of course, in Loki’s current state of inebriation, he really couldn’t care less and had told Thor so several times but Thor, however, cared.

“If you will cease your writhing, brother, this would be done much faster and with signific…signif… fuck it... loads less of this sticky, bloody aloe-coconut shit on my sheets.”

Loki sniggered. “You are most profound when drunk, Thor, please continue with the ‘sticky bloody aloe-coconut shit’ with my blessing.”

“Watch your mouth,” Thor slurred, reaching behind him to lay a stunning slap to Loki’s backside, laughing uproariously as Loki all but bucked him off in shock. Thor flattened his broad palm atop the gauze as he fought to hold it in place as Loki gasped, furious and already hypersensitive to Thor’s touch as he writhed beneath him, spitting profanities his way.

“Cease your caterwauling, you’ll wake Bruce, you big baby,” he chided, pressing down just hard enough against Loki’s raw flesh to send that sizzle back through him, stilling him instantly.

He lay still, obedient and quiet against the sheets as Thor fastened tape to the outer edges of the gauze. With a few strokes of thick, long fingers he smoothed it flat, his palm pressing sharply once more, a low whimper escaping Loki as he fought to not grind his hips downward, as much to get away from the odd sensation as it was for the flood of endorphins thickening his blood.

“There now,” Thor whispered, easing forward onto his knees and bracing a palm on either side of Loki’s head, dipping down to press a soft kiss to the soft, flawless skin between his shoulder blades, just off the edge of the gauze, “All better.”

Loki murmured his assent and managed to restrain the roll and drag of his hips against the bedding until after his brother had dismounted and shuffled off into the bathroom, his eyes smarting sharply as a bolt of shame flashed unbidden through him. He was just drifting into an uneasy and slightly shame-filled dream when Thor returned, still shower-damp and warm in his fresh boxers and t-shirt, his hand dropping onto Loki’s spine to trail fingers up and down in the slowly increasing morning light.

Loki murmured something intended to sound like an objection but edged closer as his brother crowded him against the mattress, an easy sprawl of limbs and drunken affection.

“You never said why,” Thor rumbled drowsily just as Loki had nearly slipped away once more. “Why the cow thing?”

Loki dragged one hand free of its place beneath the pillow to idly thump Thor, smirking smugly as he appeared to connect with Thor’s nose. “S’not a cow, you bloody cretin, its _Taurus_ , the bull. It’s to signify traits I both value in myself and aspire to achieve. Loyalty, determination, and alright, yes, there’s the whole thing--” He waved his hands nonsensically, nearly thwacking Thor in the nose again as he deliberately kept his gaze averted, “--with like, stubbornness and mischievousness and I do bloody love emeralds, I don’t even know why. But I’m… I’m man enough to own my faults and desires and stuff and frankly, I just...” He coughed, discomfited suddenly to say the words aloud. “The original tattooist I saw told me it was considered to be a symbol of great strength, the bull of heaven, the only one worthy of the god of lightning, of thunder and it just,” he squirmed, raw but committed to the admission, “…it _reminded_ me of you, as well, and I just thought...” He shrugged, breath catching as his sore skin drew taut briefly and Thor’s hand swept gently up his spine to stroke tenderly at the goose-pimpling skin there. “I just thought, it’s for _me,_ obviously, but... it was for you, too.”

“And you wanted that, wanted me etched into your skin alongside you?” Thor asked, his voice oddly distant and thick, and tears threatened behind Loki’s closed lids for a moment as he nodded. He thought of telling him, speaking the words aloud so that Thor would know why he wanted him there, written into his skin, intertwined with his own depiction of self for all time because... _because_ _you’re not my brother and I need to keep part of you before I lose it all forever._

“Well, then it seems I owe you one, in turn, Loki.” Thor murmured, and Loki turned his head against the pillow to face his brother’s open, blue gaze, honestly stunned by the notion.

“You – you don’t have to,” he whispered, licking dry lips and Thor lifted his hand from Loki’s back to gently cup his nape once more.

“I’d like to,” he said softly and Loki’s exhaled, “ _I’d like it, too,”_ escaped entirely without permission.

Thor smiled lopsidedly, breathing toothpaste-scented breath over Loki’s skin as he leant forward to press a soft kiss to his forehead. “It is done, then.”

Loki nuzzled closer, too drunk to deal with the warring needs to rage and wail or to drive his hips forward into Thor’s, and so he let his eyes fall shut again, his lashes brushing his brother’s collarbone, smiling finally as he drifted off, Thor’s words soft against his temple.

“Happy birthday, my brother.”

 


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's back to the tattoo parlour for more inadvisable drinking and secrets (somewhat) shared.

**Part 5:**

“Um, so – déjà vu much?”

Loki couldn’t help but smugly flush as Tony sauntered into the tattoo parlour of barely eighteen hours before, an equally befuddled Bruce and Steve in tow. He assumed Clint was still MIA as neither he or the mysterious Natasha had been seen since the latter had arrived just before Loki the night before, clad in a trench coat and what appeared to be very little else.

“Thor made me a drunken birthday promise, and I thought it best to see it done before he had a chance to take it back,” he said archly, laughing as he ducked Thor’s hand as the blond reached back to idly swat at him. Thor’s weight was resting against Loki’s chest and shoulder as he reclined half on, half off of the table. His jeans were unbuttoned and riding unsettlingly low, his left hip bone exposed and stencilled as Brad (who, it turned out, was a drinking buddy of Clint’s, complete with gratifyingly hilarious stories about their escapades and a very lax take on where and when his customers ‘got wasted’) worked the ink into his skin.

“What my brother means is ‘misery loves company,” Thor corrected with a bleary grin, having embraced tequila somewhat earlier in the day than the one previous.

Bruce was still vaguely bleary-eyed and rumpled-looking despite only rising at noon to join Thor and Loki at Thor’s professed favourite place for brunch, going back to sleep for the afternoon while Thor and Loki battled to the death on the PS4. Tony and Steve looked positively bright eyed and bushy tailed by comparison, but Loki couldn’t help the bubble of unsolicited fondness that rose in him at Tony’s pout as he regarded Thor’s already started bottle. He reached out to flick said brother on the back of one ear as he countered, “That, and being somewhat more familiar with your broken promises than your new compatriots here, considering that it’s supposedly _for me,_ after all, I wanted to see it done with my own eyes.”

Thor’s hand reached high and back to clumsily cup the back of Loki’s skull. “I’m sorry, brother, I’ve told you, I _meant_ to return home to you but Jane just _blinded_ me to all but her smile. It was never my intention to let you down, but I just couldn’t see past her--“

“--Pussy?” Tony interjected with precisely the sort of dazzling smile that told Loki that he’d loathed her lengthy hold over Thor as well, and they shared a comradely smirk.

“Actually, I _had_ meant to imply his many accrued oaths to varied girls back in Asgard, used mostly to gain access to their underwear, obviously, but generally he’d just bat his big, _pretty_ eyes and they’d suddenly forget everything but that he was looking their way. Entertaining, I’ll grant you but pitiful, for the most part.”

Thor snorted. “Your own behaviour being beyond reproach, of course. How _is_ Sif by the way? I heard she entered the Einherjar Academy just so she’ll have the opportunity to arrest you should you cross her path?”

Bruce raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Your ex-girlfriend signed up for the police force just so she can lock you up?”

Loki barked out a laugh, both of reluctant amusement and to cover the slight guilt and unease he still felt regarding Sif. “Oh, she’s an angry ex-girlfriend all right, but not mine, Thor’s.”

Steve sighed, dropping into a chair as he gestured to Thor for the tequila, with Tony goggling at the sight “Oh my. You broke Steve! I couldn’t get him off the soda water all last night, and now TEQUILA, Steven? I feel like I should be horrified, am I coming off as horrified? Because, really, I’m kind of super delighted, but SOMEONE should be stern and disapproving, right? Wait, I can use this!”

Tony spun to fix Loki with a deliberately beady eye. “You there, Elphaba, what Jerry Springer shit did you pull with Glinda there’s girlfriend that she’s so mad about? Because _clearly_ he’s not, but I am, and maybe Bruce is too--he’s always angry so no points there, sadly--but you’ve driven Steve to drink. Thanks, by the way, I’m like 20% more irresistible when viewed through beer goggles… Tequila goggles? ...Never mind. The point _is_ , young man, we want answers and, quite obviously, all of the sordid details!”

Loki took a moment to blink, before looking past Tony to meet Steve’s wary gaze. “Considering that it appears he’s taken to actively Googling random names to call me, someone who he only sees on odd occasions, I’m going to assume that, in actuality, given your total exposure, it is Stark here who’s driven you to drink?”

Steve rolled his eyes and took a swig from the bottle, before pulling a face and immediately passing it to Bruce. “Oh, he’s maybe 20% of the reason,” he wheezed, grinning ruefully, and Tony huffed his way over to flop melodramatically into the chair next to Steve’s, the curl at the edge of his lips betraying his abruptly sullen air as he folded his arms and glowered back at the now openly laughing brothers.

“Um, for the record, I don’t need Google for snappy nicknames, I’m just that brilliant, thank you.” He sniffed and waved a haughty hand that also handily snagged the tequila back from Bruce, “Now, I believe the remaining 80% of poor Steve’s breakdown lies at your door and so…?” Opening his arms wide, Tony gestured grandiosely and over-enunciated loudly, “PLEASE RESUMETH THY TALE TELLING.”

Steve’s palm hit his forehead with a quiet smacking sound, and Bruce reached out to offer Tony what Loki could only assume was a pity fist bump.

“Oh, um… Excellent Asgardian there, really, nailed it your first time, so no need for any repeat performances, k?”

Loki dipped his head to murmur (in a voice still loud enough to carry) in Thor’s ear, “Really, Thor, your choice in companions might lead one to presume you to have a taste for lunacy.”

Thor tilted his head back, smiling somewhat lopsidedly back up at him as he replied, “You speak as though you would rather I wait in solitude and daily boredom, merely sitting on my hands until you yourself are free to amuse me?”

Loki’s teeth, unbidden and almost savage in their readiness, bared themselves, partly in a smile, partly in warning, in time with his deliberately widened eyes, as he ducked closer still to Thor’s upturned face to hiss, “But of course, brother. Was it ever in doubt?”

A loud, deliberately put upon sigh stretched across the room to make Tony’s belaboured point, and Thor laughed, his colour heightened as he corrected his tilted stance so that his back rested once more against Loki’s chest.

“Good god, Stark, I get your point, subtle as it was, alright?” Rolling his eyes, Loki cleared his throat and affected one of his most mellifluous tones, smirking. “Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Asgard, there was a young prince who, despite being perpetually knee-deep in pussy, was frequently _utterly_ blind when it came to being able to spot someone desperate for just a hint of his attention--“

“See now, that’s just sad, you shouldn’t ignore your little brother when he’s desperate for you, Buffy. How can you expect him to grow up big and strong and, yes, ok, admittedly fine as hell and, huh, no longer jailbait, am I right? I‘m right. Noted… Ok, I totally digressed and lost where we were in the story? OH, I remember, Thor was ignoring Loki. _Continue_.”

Loki clenched his jaw, readying a retort but paused when one of Thor’s hands dropped to squeeze his knee, parrying swiftly, “I believe, in fact, that Loki was referencing both my remarkable prowess in the bedroom and my awe-inspiring modesty, in that I frequently seem to overlook those seeking evidence of the former.” He beamed and Loki snorted so hard that Thor flinched, affecting an affronted pout, Brad glaring as he jerked beneath his hand.

“Sorry, Brad, sorry. We’ll behave. “

“Uh, I might not?”

“Shut _up,_ Stark. Anyway, to return to my story, despite his total lack of modesty, Thor was entirely capable of overlooking just how many girls were breaking their hearts over his disinterest. I can’t tell you how delightful it was to grow up in an area where, no matter where Thor might actually be, I could turn and idly throw a stone and likely hit several girls all wearing the willow for him.”

“Must have been quite some stone.”

“Shut _up,_ Tony!”

“Thank you, Bruce. So, a few years back, I was essentially left to my own devices for a few weeks at the beginning of the summer break. Brother dearest, here, was on some trip or another, our parents busy with plans for a fundraiser, so I was spending almost all of my time away from the house, lest I be roped in to help stuff envelopes or some such other boring shit. I spent most of my time alone, people-watching for the most part.”

Thor shifted, grimacing as the needle rode over a particularly tender spot on his hipbone.

“Mother always said you wove your mischief through boredom; ‘people watching’ was, for the most part, simply code for ‘hunting for prey’.”

Catching the fond look that accompanied the truthful jab, Loki inclined his head, grinning.

“Well, she wasn’t wrong, precisely, but in this case my motivation was originally curiosity rather than malice--“

“That is not how the lady tells it, I hear.”

“--and she can run and tell all the stories she likes, Thor, but she and I know that had I not intervened then she would likely have never made it onto your headboard tally in the first place.”

Steve pulled a disapproving face. “Firstly, please tell me you don’t actually have one of those, Thor? No? Good, I know I’ve been a lot behind the times but, y’know, _gross_. Secondly, what did you do, hide her in his bed?”

Tony smiled broadly, placing an arm around the back of Steve’s chair and smirking as the blond's cheeks pinked. “Straight to the heart of the matter, Rogers, I like that in a man. Or, if it’s the tequila talking, then I like that in you too.”

“Keep it in your pants, Stark. Anyway, I’d often seen Sif around, she was very active on the fencing, kickboxing and athletics teams at our school, co-chair of the debate team and overall a pretty, seemingly well-rounded girl who had never given me a second look.”

“Ohhhh, it’s one of _those_ stories. You wanted a crack at Little Miss Popularity yourself, did you?”

“Firstly, no, I’m gay, idiot, and secondly, you do realise I probably could have told this story twice over by now if you would just stop interrupting, Stark? The point _is,_ ” he swallowed, having felt Thor tensing minutely against him, wondering suddenly if he’d ever admitted it to him before, feeling oddly raw at the idea of having given himself, his newly twisted urges, away somehow, “that she actually _was not_ popular. She went around with the same trio of friends, all male as I recall, from middle school all the way to sophomore year and then, out of the blue, there she was that summer with new friends, new hobbies, new confidence, and a new look.”

“Ditched her chrysalis?” Bruce asked and Steve squirmed, inadvertently confirming the rumours that his own body had kept him small, spindly and sick for far too many years before being selected for the last decade’s most prolific miracle drug in its trial stages.

“Been there,” he mumbled, and Loki felt an odd kinship with the ostensible Greek god, so at odds with his own skin, the new actuality of himself.

“It wasn’t quite the same. In those scenarios both yourself and the butterfly were only shifting to become what you should have always been, you just needed a little help. Sif, on the other hand, required a great deal more.”

Thor shot Loki a pointed glance. “And in this scenario, your idea of ‘a great deal more help’ meant months of lying and sabotage, yes?”

Loki affected a saintly, troubled air. “She was one of my greatest commitments so, absolutely, brother.”

Pausing to allow Thor his snort of amused derision, Loki continued.

“She dropped her group sports, the debate team, her friends, and her entire life basically. She took to going around with the actual ‘popular’ girls, likely had been doing so for a few weeks before I realised it was her. She had always sported straight, dark hair and a very straightforward taste in clothes, but when I saw her after the first few weeks of summer, she had gone a bright, sort of tacky blonde that did nothing for her at all and was wearing an almost identical outfit to her newfound friends. I can only assume they insisted on matching outfits every morning or that it was a bizarre form of uniform, but either way she took to her new team very swiftly. I followed them around for almost a week, marvelling at the seeming personality transplant before I realised she was faking it. The shrill new laugh, the repeated exclamations of the same phrases over and over that were inane at the best of times when only said once, all fake. It was fascinating, really. So I introduced myself and set about finding out why a perfectly happy moth was forcing herself to become an ill-fitting butterfly.”

He paused, looking over to Tony, expectantly.

“What, I didn’t say anything.”

“Well, considering that I thought the answer to be obvious, I imagined you’d want to be the first to make the sort of needless remark that you apparently find funny?”

Tony blinked, but it was Steve who tipped his head to one side, brows scrunching together. “Wait, all of that was because she wanted to sleep with Thor?”

The weight on Loki’s chest increased abruptly as Thor sagged, an apparently put-upon martyr as he lolled dramatically backwards. “How am I to blame for this? I had never turned her down. I don’t believe I’d ever so much as spoken a single word to her or even seen her before the end of that summer!”

“Ahh, dude, c'mon, I was rooting for you there and you just made his whole case for him!” Bruce cried from between his fingers, his hands clamped over his face as he winced.

“What, how!?” Thor cried, moving to sit fully upright with enough force that Loki had to all but drag him back into his chuckling embrace to avoid the wrath of Brad.

Tony rose and crossed the room, passing a decidedly sulky-looking Thor the bottle once more and patting his bicep in commiseration.

“Cause and effect, Buttercup, the lady protesteth and all that jazz, but from what it sounds like, you never noticed she so much as existed, then Loki pulls some sneaky shit, so she hates him but you suddenly bang her six ways from Sunday, and all is well. You’re definitely the root of it all. Now suck it up, I want to hear how Wednesday here Queer-Eyed her into your bed.”

Sneering slightly, Loki demurred sullenly. “Oh, I very much doubt there was a bed involved --feel free to never correct me on that, Thor. Just because she was a pet project for a while it doesn’t mean I need a blow by blow of the… well, you get the idea. Anyway, I introduced myself, with a fake name, naturally, told her I was new to the area, hammed up my, hmm, ‘Queer Eye’ side, as Stark put it and had her convinced I was her long-lost GBFF by the end of the afternoon.” He dropped his gaze to where Thor’s hand had crept back to rest upon his knee, a tiny pang of something like regret still lurking in him for the girl too proud to admit that her own now rock sure self-confidence was owed, at least a little, to his stratagems.

“So I learned how lonely Sif had been, how she felt she’d expected too much of herself and how she’d decided to just live a little, go with the flow, be blonde, have more fun and other such ridiculous slogans that meant nothing in the face of her insincerity. If she’d been content to go from shark to minnow, I’d have simply let her be, but I was intrigued by someone who would get so completely in their own way, all for want of a boyfriend. Not any boyfriend, either, not even Thor, here, which would have been bad enough, but _imaginary_ Thor.” He grimaced, recalling the besotted look on her face as she’d waxed lyrical about a being so perfect that it ceased to resemble anything approaching his very much flesh-and-blood sibling. “Which was _so_ much worse, because imaginary Thor actually cared that she was blonde now, that she was less ‘aggressive’, that she was lesser overall, really, and he would approve of and love her, and then everything would, of course, be perfect.”

“So you talked Sif out of it?” Bruce interposed, brows raised quizzically and Loki squashed to urge to laugh, still amused two years on, despite his regrets.

“Oh _no_ ,” he mocked, “that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. I talked Sif _into_ it.”

Steve and Bruce both gaped at him, Tony’s gaze sharpening as his attention centred squarely on the tale at hand and Loki laughed at Thor’s soft sigh of resigned acceptance, eyes soft even as he shook his head at Loki’s ill-concealed glee. “I bolstered every belief, I fostered every iota of assumption, I became, in fact, her greatest ally and then I set her up to fail over and over again, all summer long.”

There was a pause, and Steve said, softly yet with force, “That’s _awful_.”

Loki quirked a brow. “Perhaps, but I prefer to think of it a necessary evil. Sif’s who she was always supposed to be now, and I never had to say a word to convince her that what she’d been doing was wrong. Oh no, I just made sure she was highly aware of the pitfalls that come with such a drastic behavioural change.”

“So, what, you humiliated her? Into being a better person? Sorry, Twinkerbell, but as the resident out of the box thinker here I’m going to have to go ahead and call bullshit.”

“Consider it her pupal stage, Stark. I didn’t humiliate her, but her new persona was too weak to withstand the incursions from her former reality. I suppose that, had she had the full summer to work on installing Barbie mode, she might have carried it through junior year unto infinity. So, to keep her from fully transmogrifying, I kept throwing her into the path of her newly-discarded old friends, proud former mentors, people who actually _knew_ her. Each time she had to force on the giggling, bubble-headed mask to cover up her horror at her worlds colliding it took a little more convincing on my part that it _was_ what she wanted. I did it to her over and over again, until she stopped asking if I thought what she was doing was right because she was starting to think it was wrong herself. I’m fairly sure that coming back to school would have clinched it anyway, but Liesmith though they call me--”

Thor grunted, repeating the word to himself, muttering that he’d forgotten about that one, stroking Loki’s thigh as though to pacify him against a hurt of old (despite it being a point of pride to him that few could tell when he was really telling the truth when the need arose.)

“--I knew I couldn’t continue my charade within the school walls and I wasn’t completely certain of my success, so I, as they say, ‘brought out the big guns’.”

He rolled his eyes at Thor’s quick gurgle of merriment, raising his arms in the classic ‘Strong man’ pose. “That was me. I was the ‘Big Guns’!”

An odd blurt of pain settled behind Loki’s breastbone as he pulled Thor back against him again. His hot-headed but warm-hearted brother was good-natured enough without the heady spread of alcohol through his veins. He was almost unbearably sweet and straightforward now, courtesy of the alcohol and endorphins in his system. It was all Loki could do to merely draw him back, rather than cling to him possessively and demand that no one else _dare_ enjoy his warmth, his smile, and the weight of his affection.

“No, Thor,” he said, resignedly, “The hair dye was the big guns, _you_ were the _piece de resistance.”_

“Sorry, what? Flag on the play--hair dye? _Hair dye_ was her breaking point?” Tony crossed his arms with a ferocious scowl and Loki grinned, always a fan of a captive audience.

“Well, I suppose it was more of a reboot, really. Whenever Sif felt low, she’d go get beauty treatments with the rest of the carbon-copy crew. So I paid off one of the hair washer girls to isolate her from the others, to offer her a free facial treatment--shut it Stark, that’s _not_ where this is going--and once she had the mask on and her hair was being fiddled about with, I told them to restore her natural colour, as best they could anyway. At that point, she’d been retouching it so often it was a miracle there was any hair left really, but fortunately, it turns out bleached hair takes colour very well, and she was raven-haired again in no time.”

He stopped there, about to smirk, but caught both genuinely horrified and mystified looks combined coming from Steve and paused further, awaiting the outburst. “But, I still don’t get it. It sounds goddamn horrific frankly. You spent all summer making her hate her new self and then paid someone else to turn her back into her old self without permission?”

Loki shook his head, biting the inside of his cheek slightly to hold back the tide of scorn he was used to pouring over those who doubted him, still adjusting to the idea of his brother's friends possibly becoming his own.

“No, she’d _already_ hated her new self, I just spent all summer long not letting her forget that fact. Then, when she was low and thinking back on better times and the spectres of her ‘ _what Ifs’_ were too faint to bring her solace anymore, I restored her to the person she’d thought wasn’t worthy of said imaginings and then I played my ace in the hole.”

“Which was?” Brad asked, pausing, the tattoo gun suddenly silent in his hand as his attention fixed on Loki along with everyone else’s in the room and Loki smiled smugly.

“That Thor has _always_ preferred brunettes.”

There was a moment of silence and Thor lifted the bottle contemplatively before nodding and drinking, as though toasting his own good taste and Loki continued. “I waited just outside, on the phone with her for the most part, parroting all sorts of stereotypical inanities, watching as they got ready to remove the face mask and blow out her hair for her, and then I called Thor to come to meet me.”

The leather seats creaked as both Bruce and Tony leaned forward.

“I left him outside, only for a moment, and waited behind her chair as they spun her to face the mirror and, just as she saw herself with her old hair colour restored, she saw me there, as well. The difference was that I was dressed more like, well, myself and not the ‘Luke’ she’d come to know over the holidays, and she froze _just_ long enough for me to reintroduce myself and for Thor to walk in.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Thor abruptly intoned, drawing his words out into something approaching Loki’s slower, smooth tones, “I’m Loki, Loki Alfodr. It’s _so_ nice to make your acquaintance. Oh, Thor, there you are. This is my brother, Thor Alfodr, Sif. Thor, this is my new friend, Sif. I was _just_ telling her how much I love her hair. What do _you_ think?”

Loki closed his mouth, unsure when it had dropped open. “I… had not realised you remembered the event so clearly, brother.”

“Well,” Thor sniffed, clearly pleased with himself, “that sort of thing does tend to stick in the memory.”

_Oh_.

Oh, that _hurt_.

He’d known of course, that in essentially gifting Thor to Sif that he was doing her a service that caused him discomfort from having to share Thor once again, but this was so much worse.  He’d not realised until then just how muted his jealousy pangs had always been and their new savage tendrils tore through him now, warring with the shame of even being jealous of Sif in _that_ way, as he clenched his teeth, buying himself a moment for control.

There had been different rumours about different girls for years, obviously. Their family was as close to royalty could get in their hometown, and Thor their brightest star, but it was one thing to be used to hearing that your brother had been caught with someone at a party in the bathroom, the guest room, the pool house, the _closet_ , and another entirely to know they’d only been _with_ them, purely because he had placed them in Thor’s path himself.

Sif would never know it, but she had finally had her revenge, indeed.

“Wait, so, that’s it? You undermined her, ok, possibly _shitty_ new identity all summer, an identity she’d only created because she’d convinced herself that dreamboats like Prince Charming here wouldn’t dig her former self, then you yanked said shitty identity away from her right when she was starting to see how shitty it was, and then gave her Thor on a platter to say sorry?”

“I didn’t give him to her on a platter,” Loki said quietly, all of his former pride in the situation having abruptly dissipated. “It was just supposed to show her that her notions of who she had to be versus who she was were out of alignment. It’s not like I whored him out to her.”

“In fact,” Thor broke in, still sounding smug, unaware of Tony’s glazing eyes as his mind seemingly turned inward, “you told me specifically that you wished me merely to be kind to her, that her self-esteem had taken a knock and that you needed me to be just kind enough for her to realise she was worthier than she gave herself credit for.”

Loki leaned forward, twisting round Thor’s shoulder to look directly into his face, genuinely surprised. “That… is absolutely correct. Almost word for word, in fact. How do you remember that so well when I’ve seen you forget why you’ve gone into the bathroom in the mornings? Oh _lord,_ don’t tell me it was the sex, I can’t see how doing bloody Sif could make you recall my words verbatim.” He finished, between his teeth and Thor ( _damn him)_ had the gall to wink.

“I told you you haven’t used me as you ought in the past, Loki. I’m much better at stealth and subterfuge than you give me credit for. Of course, I remember the _only_ time you let me in on one of your schemes. The whole reason I ever actually ended up, well, you know, was because I saw her at a party that New Year and remembered that you had wanted me to be kind to her.”

Tony spluttered and choked on his swig of tequila and Loki, oddly grateful for the distraction, broke in dryly before Tony could compose himself enough to speak. “ _No_ , Stark, I won’t tell Thor to be kind to you.”

Tony clicked his fingers, miming _aw shucks_ even as his eyes watered. He coughed a time or two more and then croaked, “Kindnesses aside, I’ve got to say after all that, I’m with Maleficent. He did that girl a solid.”

Loki, despite all his misgivings, raised his hand and allowed the high-five that Stark had crossed the room to graciously bestow upon him. “Thank you, Tony, your approval quite warms the cockles of my heart.”

Steve pulled a face. “It seems like a lot of mean tricks to achieve the same end that, umm, ‘proper’ kindness could have accomplished?”

Shrugging, Loki concurred, somewhat. “If you’re saying she’s every right to hate me for my methods, then you’re absolutely right, of course, but I’m afraid I’ve always done my best work the worst way.” He winked, grinning semi-snidely at the still discomfited blond, “We can’t all be the well-mannered, well-intentioned ‘ _Captains of Our Souls_ ’ that the words demand, after all.”

Steve blushed, hand rubbing unconsciously at his chest where he’d admitted during Loki’s tattoo session the previous night, that he had the words ‘ _Master of my Fate, Captain of my Soul_ ’ etched into his skin, and he rolled his eyes, tolerant of the failings of others in ways he’d been seen to never allow in himself.

“I gotta agree with Steve, it was a little meanly done, but it sounds like your intentions were, ok, not exactly pure, but kinda well-meant I guess, and it all worked out, so…” Bruce shrugged. “Arresting you does seem like a leap, sure, I mean, her life is all good yeah? You didn’t screw anything up for her or anything? “

“Just made it super obvious that she was screwing herself up. Mean as fuck in places, I’ll grant you guys, but overall I dig it.”

“You _dig_ it, Tony? Seriously? You’re in favour of approaching the problem in a way that’ll most likely bring someone pain versus take the kinder, maybe slower and harder road, knowing it’ll do the same good in the end?” Steve’s tone had lost all its initial horror, he just looked at Tony as though he couldn’t quite wrap his head around his reasoning, and Tony smiled, softly, with genuine fondness as he reached out to brush quick fingertips where Steve had only moments before.

“Well, that’s why we need you, _Captain_ , you’ll keep us on the straight and narrow. Well, as best you can anyway.” He winked and turned back to Loki and Thor, his smile a tad devilish.

“For my part, I don’t see why she can’t just get past it, fun though handcuffs can be. You reduced her awkward high school phase to just a few months _and_ graciously gave her your brother to bone at the end of it. Hell, if it’s the hair that she’s still pissed about, there’s nothing stopping her from dying it again now she’s got her notch on his bedpost.”

Loki shifted, uncomfortable again at the reminder that Sif had triumphed over him in more ways than he’d ever realised until now. “As far as I could tell in my blissfully ignorant state thank you, Thor, do _not_ feel the need to correct me, they never actually dated. It was more, ugh, attended the same parties--” Every school break till he’d dropped them all for the Foster chit, damn him “--with benefits, I’d guess would be the right way to put it? So, for all I know, she’s keeping the hair so she can stay his type for a few more _festivities_ yet.”

He shrugged and nearly fell backwards as Thor reached back to prod at him, brow crinkled. “You said that before, Loki. I don’t have a _type_. I’m equally interested in everyone!”

Both Bruce and Thor snorted and Loki grinned, oddly comforted by how often he found reinforcements in his brother's friends, people he had no claim to but who seemed to accept his own claim on Thor without griping.

“Never mind, never mind, not saying a thing.” Tony choked and Thor both blushed and narrowed his gaze at his snickering friend.

“Oh, _c’mon_ dude,” Bruce grinned “Here, answer me this, smart as a whip, sassy, sexy, dark-haired, who am I describing?”

Thor bit back a groan as Brad changed the angle slightly, shifting his hips, and Loki’s mouth went absurdly dry at the memory of the whispered confession during his own inking session the night before.

“…my type?” Thor slurred eventually, grinning, abashed, and Loki grimaced, heat twisting in him at his brothers lowered tones.

“Sorry, Thor, but you know that’s pretty dead-on, man. Seems like if there’s breasts, brains and brown or black hair involved you’re there with bells on.” Bruce laughed, smiling apologetically at a somewhat uncomfortable-looking Steve.

“ _Oh_ yeah, like literally every girl I’ve ever seen you with.” Tony chuckled and waggled his eyebrows.

Loki laughed with them, the sound gently petering out as Thor rolled his head against Loki’s shoulders until he could somewhat startlingly leer in Tony’s direction. “Oh come now, Stark, you of all people know that's not quite true.”

Loki stiffened as Stark’s comradely smirk spread to include Thor, a brow quirking upwards as he dipped his head, acquiescing with a wink. “A fair point, but see, I thought we weren’t ever supposed to talk about that. Y’know _Fight Club_ style--dammit, there goes my membership to the local Fight Club--anyway, considering your general level of inebriation and the fact that I’m the only male on your roster of dark, sexy and accomplished, I think I’m going to have to side with Bruce and Bella Swann here.”

Loki’s blood froze, and it took a moment for him to recall quite how to breathe. “You -- you and _Thor?_ ” Steve helpfully and abruptly blurted, giving Loki a well-needed second to recover his wits.

“Well, _no_ ,” Tony all but purred, doing nothing for Loki’s abruptly frayed nerves, “More Thor and Jane and then Darcy and myself, only, over time, of course, and a few too many drinks it seems, our double date descended into something more like a foursome.”

Bruce gaped so hard his breaths were audible as they whistled through the cavern of his open mouth. “You -- you and? With? _Both of them?_ I--how did that even _work_?”

Thor shook his head, chuckling ruefully, and Loki thought sincerely about pulling his hair hard enough to rip it out. Tony took pity on the silent members of their group, and Brad was doing his utmost to appear as though he weren’t eavesdropping shamelessly. “Well, for starters, there was rum, and some sort of pink frothy thing in a jug that Darcy ordered and I only drank it because I was feeling, like, really into breasts that week.” Tony grinned at his accumulated, goggling audience. “Although, obviously, _that_ was just a passing phase. Anyway, we were all completely blitzed. I think it started somewhere along the way with my head down Darcy’s top, then before I know it she’s riding me like there’s no tomorrow, making out with Jane like she’ll die if she has to stop, and Wonderboy here is hard at work up under Not So Plain Jane’s skirt and... _Well_ ,” he beamed, affecting an air of humble martyrdom, “it seemed to me like someone needed a helping hand, a hand that I was only too willing to provide.”

He batted criminally long lashes in Thor’s direction, and Loki ground his teeth against each other so hard they squeaked.

“Gotta say it, big guy--and I do mean _big_ , now that I’m allowed to bring it, heh, _up_ \--beats me how little Miss Foster ever let you slip through her teeny little clutches.”

Thor shifted his hips again with a blurry, smug sort of grin and Loki forced himself to stare at the vivid black and red etching of the tattoo against his skin, rather than directly at Thor’s crotch, furious and jealous, and sick at himself all at once.

“As far as I am aware, Jane is currently still enjoying the company and--how did you say it?-- _clutches_ of her good friend, Darcy, and, to be truthful, Jane and I both knew before entering your apartment that night that it was verging on over for us. For all that we had been briefly besotted with each other, there was no longer any fire between us, just a sort of strange, simmering familiarity, and it seemed wasteful for either of us to consider settling for less.”

He lifted a hand to stroke Loki’s hair back from his cheek, disturbing his apparent sudden bout of melancholy to say softly, “Besides, as _interesting_ as it was, Tony, I believe I would far rather have a partner who would sooner kill than bear the agony of my being intimate with another.”

“I think that’s fair,” came Steve’s voice, oddly bleak following the smooth cadence of Thor’s genial rumble, and Loki felt a sudden pang of kinship with the likely former Boy Scout.

A moment passed, the silence heavy and uncomfortable as Loki inclined his head toward Steve and Tony flushed, something like stricken beneath the strip lighting, and Bruce finally cleared his throat after a beat. “Wow, hey, who knew this would get so awkward, right?” He laughed weakly, “So, does this mean you’re switching teams now, dude? I mean, as a firmly heterosexual kind of guy with a campus full of hotties, it’d be kind of nice to know if the competition was about to be, oh I don’t know, _halved_ or something?”

Thor chuckled lightly and fumbled for the tequila bottle set haphazardly down on the table between them. “I wouldn’t call it switching teams so much as,” he paused, frowning thoughtfully as he took a long drag from the bottle before offering the room at large a smug, shit-eating grin, “…embracing diversity.”

Tony cheered, reaching forward to fist-bump Thor enthusiastically and Loki felt an unexpected stab of _hatred_ towards his brother and his eyes stung at the realisation of it.

“Oh good,” Bruce drawled, clapping a stony-faced Steve on the shoulder in mock commiseration. “Just what we need, two roving bisexual horn-dogs to compete with, right?”

Thor snorted inelegantly, “As though you were not saving yourself for the lovely Betty, my friend. Besides, I mean to retire myself from that lifestyle for a while. Not only was it somewhat tedious but it becomes clear to me that I neglect both friends and family when in...uhm... the pursuit of pleasure,”

“Again, pussy, or y’know whatever,” Tony interjected. “Just seems damn _selfish_ if you ask me, which, I note no one has, but then when did I ever need an invite?   _Anyway_ , my point is no one should have _that_ much cock and not share it with the masses.”

“I take it you don’t quite _measure_ _up_ to the job?” Loki asked with a slow smile that involved a few too many teeth for friendliness.

Tony met him head on, shark smile to smile as he rocked idly on his heels and, all but forgotten, Brad snorted and muttered about unopened cans of worms.

“Oh my ‘measurements’ have always lived up to the _hard_ sell, thanks, _Arwen_ , but hey, I hear it’s not that big a deal for some guys so don’t go beating yourself up if you think you don’t live up to brother dearest here, not everyone can be _quite_ so blessed as he.”

Loki took a breath. “Firstly,” he purred, “he’s not my dearest _anything_.” He paused, awaiting Thor’s response but he merely pulled a face and swatted at him again before taking another pull from the tequila bottle and something withered in Loki’s gut at the lack of immediate negation. “Second, I have thankfully found myself to be _equally_ blessed in that regard, so I’m afraid you’ll now need to turn to Bruce or your all-American sweetheart there if you were seeking an audience for your ‘Size Isn’t Everything’ spiel. “

A beat passed, and then:

“Nah, I’m good, thanks.”

Brad sniggered and Bruce beamed as his words garnered an answering chuckle from a blushing Steve, and Loki mentally berated himself for allowing his tongue to run ahead of him. He smiled ruefully in turn as everyone seemed to shake off their prior stiffness, the only person still seemingly perturbed leaning up on an elbow, tilting his head back to look directly at Loki.

“Pray do tell us, brother,” Thor intoned blearily with a cocky, purposeful look focused directly up into Loki’s steadily more amused face, “at just what point did you discern the precise dimensions of our apparently equal _blessing_ s?”

Loki laughed, abruptly unbound from the weight of misery that hung on him for weeks now, rocking with the glee of it, sudden and wondrous in its simplicity, meeting Thor’s wide, blue-eyed gaze as he leaned in close. “Oh, my dearest Thor, trust me when I say I think you’d rather I didn’t tell that story.”

Thor cocked a golden eyebrow and something in the smug certainty of his smile as he let his weight settle back against Loki’s slimmer chest (amidst Brad’s renewed admonishments for moving yet _again_ ) made Loki’s stomach muscles tense and then tremble as Thor chuckled softly.

“Loki, after first telling tales of the many lies you’ve inflicted upon the general populace back home, and the fact that you just called me ‘dearest’ after _literally_ denying I was any such thing mere moments ago, I find I no longer fear your memories nor your falsehoods. Spin your fictitious tale. I welcome the entertainment.”

Loki pursed his lips, irritation rising to the surface at the reminder of his slip of the tongue, feeling torn between wiping the smirk from Thor’s tequila-dampened lips and spilling a somewhat twisted (yet oddly beloved) memory when, across the room, Steve lifted both brows and smiled.

His previously disapproving and usually strait-laced air was steadily being replaced by one of roguish anticipation and Loki, abruptly put in mind of Steve’s grim, almost lost expression during Tony’s own story, found he was quite unable to hold his tongue.

“Well, this one is decidedly _not_ a fairy tale so we’ll dispense with the standard opening line, shall we? Basically, back when Thor and I were a few years younger,” he began, inching forward, his tone lowering, already conspiratorial as he noted his audience’s eager interest, with Thor crossing his arms over his chest with decidedly too cavalier an attitude, “we used to spend the entirety of our Augusts together. The remainder of the summer holidays was for friends and anything else we might fancy, both together and apart, but August was entirely _ours_.”

Thor breathed out slowly, his eyes flickering shut, and Loki wondered dimly if he still saw (as _he_ did) the gleam of the sky above them as they swam together, smelled the crispness of the apples they picked and ate on slowly browning grass, and felt the lassitude of heat and happiness in his very _core_ at just the recollection of those times.

“Frequently, during these times, we would camp together, first down at the end of the garden, then off in the woods, by the lake, we always ended up sleeping rough somewhere. Didn’t matter where. Thor would grab us whatever was handy and then we’d either end up in a pile of blankets or up a tree or in a boat. Then it was just the two of us doing whatever we wanted, and then when we got too tired or filthy or hungry to bear it any longer, we’d head home.”

Steve’s eyes went soft with something like nostalgia and Bruce smiled as he hummed approval and even Tony’s smirk seemed to gentle, but Loki’s eyes were only for Thor.

“Then, one year,” he continued, softly, “we had this hammock.”

Thor’s eyes shot open. “It was this huge, wide thing.” Loki gestured expansively and Tony snorted, prompting Loki to roll his eyes, handily keeping him from catching Thor’s now wide-eyed gaze. “It fit us both easily, even with our sleeping bags in it, but for the most part it was so hot we didn’t bother with them, we’d just lay in the hammock itself and sweat.”

He paused, affecting a salacious grin, “Now, during a trip to a nearby, _horrific_ campsite restroom, I found someone’s abandoned porno magazine tossed into the bushes and brought it back with me. I knew I was gay from early on,” Thor’s eyes were almost _scorching_ their way through him now, “so the ‘tits and ass’ stuff didn’t do a thing for me, really, but the _letters_ page…oh, it was _ridiculous,_ desperate fiction masquerading as truth and so, _so_ poorly written to boot!”

He couldn’t help but grin a little, chuckling at the memory as he finally let Thor catch his eye. “We read them aloud, laughing and doing different voices. Do you remember the guy with his wife’s sister? Oh god _,_ _so_ ludicrous. Anyway, we were reading them after dinner and I was full up and warm and _exhausted,_ really, from laughing so hard and...well, I just sort of nodded off. Sort of.”

Thor stiffened and abruptly made to sit up, but Tony stepped forward, lightning-fast, and pushed him down before Brad could do more than hiss angrily, his intricate work along the outer borders of the jagged spike off to one side of the design now likely somewhat more jagged than it was meant to be.

“Easy there, Fezzig. Don’t want that needle anywhere it’s not meant to be, am I right? Besides, I’m starting to think you maybe should have taken Brother _Not So Grimm_ here up on his offer _before_ you remembered how embarrassing it might be, yeah? Too late, so sad, too bad, yadda-yadda. Now, on with the story!”

Loki watched Thor’s throat bob as he leant slowly back against him and he couldn’t help but lift the tequila bottle, holding it to Thor’s lips as their eyes caught briefly and held. Brad’s gun stilled at almost the same moment; the gentle, persistent buzzing ceased without warning and left the air too quiet and empty without the rhythmic pump of ink into Thor’s skin. The soft cadence of Loki’s voice had fallen away completely.

“So?” Brad said into the nothingness, “what do you guys think?”

Loki tilted forward, craning over Thor’s shoulder to stare at the bold, barbed twist of ink that curved over and down his brother's pelvis, the sharp lines and knots of it dragging themselves over his iliac crest and down towards his groin, the markings entirely different and yet queerly reminiscent of his own. He wet his lips, unable to quite contain the slow curl of his lips as he noted that his brother’s body was now marked with a design that he attributed to _him_ and (despite all efforts to think otherwise) it was fucking _hot_.

“That? Is HOT,” Tony unknowingly concurred and Loki grinned all the more widely, shifting to watch Thor as he continued to stare at it in silence.

Slowly Thor reached out to gently trace a thumb against the most intricate part of it and shuddered lightly before finally he beamed broadly. “I love it,” he growled and turned his head to beam directly into Loki’s face. “Well brother, are you not pleased? We match!”

Loki allowed himself a quick smile back before turning back to Brad. “Excellent work, my friend,” He passed him over a wad of bills that more than covered the night's session and, when Brad made to object, both Loki and Bruce neatly quashed his protests.

“You fit us in at the last minute--”

“Not to mention you’ve been likely mentally scarred.”

“--and we’re so pleased with the work --”

“It’s been a massive inconvenience.”

“--so please--”

“ _Please_.”

“--accept both our thanks and the money, Brad, it’s more than deserved.”

Brad laughingly acquiesced and moved aside to put the money in the lockbox and Loki basked in the warm rush of pleasure that came with both Steve and Bruce’s honest admiration for the design now adorning Thor’s skin, as Thor sagged against him, relaxed and carefree. Suddenly Brad snapped his fingers with an exclamation.

“Oh man, this is a great tip you guys really, but _c’mon,_ after all of that I _gotta know_. What happened that was so embarrassing after you fell asleep?”

Loki blinked and the room went into slow-motion, watching as Bruce’s hand met his forehead, Steve’s wince palpable from several feet away as Tony _lit up_ with joy and Thor turned seemingly to stone. He swallowed and Loki brushed careful fingertips over the tensed line of his forearm even as he wrinkled his nose, smiling offhandedly.

“Oh, really, it was nothing, I was just playing it up to mess with him. He snuck off to have a quick wank and I caught him at it.” He laughed, aware of Thor’s eyes back on him in an instant. “No one’s ideal situation, obviously, but certainly enough of a glimpse to realise that all the stuff written on bathroom stalls throughout Asgard was 100% accurate.” He shrugged and widened his eyes sorrowfully. “I guess Stark had the better dick-size story, after all.”  

Tony booed and Loki affected an air of shame. “I know, I know. I promise it would have seemed better had I drawn it out, but in light of my brother's gorgeous new tattoo I find I’m all out of patience for storytelling. Now,” he dazzled them with his most disarming smile, (noticing Thor’s gentle huff at its usage, clearly he’d grown immune), “I’m thinking _drinks_?”

Bruce and Tony cheered, and even Steve managed an amused headshake despite his dubious glance at the almost empty tequila bottle, but as Loki stepped out of the way to give Thor a chance to fully sit up and refasten his jeans over the gauze Brad was taping in place, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of Thor’s stare upon him, and it made something within him _burn_.

 


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout from the secrets of Loki and Thor's tattoo session (aka quickly added extra chapter because I can't remember why I cut this bit and the last in two lol )

**Part 6:**

Loki’s tattoo _itched_ , the scabs forming there tightening the skin, and he frowned vaguely, trying to talk his brain into sleep before the itching made itself an issue. A soft noise escaped him as the bed depressed next to him abruptly.

“Loki? Loki, are you sleeping?” Thor’s breath was fresh with mint and the tang of shea, coconut and aloe was strong between them where he’d re-applied the tattoo butter after his shower.

“Was _trying_ to.” he slurred back, half amused, half irritated by Thor’s presence suddenly looming over him, so he cracked an eye open and looked up at him as he frowned in the semi-darkness.

They’d staggered home ahead of the others, jeered at by even Bruce for their early-ish bail-out, but Loki had found it hard to keep pace, his stomach taut with bizarrely unremitting nerves both from the surge of feeling that came from the rush of Thor’s new tattoo and the inexplicable ceasing of Thor’s own alcoholic intake.

Now, there they were, gradually sobering in the quiet of Thor’s bedroom, only the light from Bruce’s fish tank preventing total darkness as Loki gazed up into his supposed-brother’s face.

“Is it your tattoo?” Loki whispered, unwilling to give the impression of full lucidity under the still-bright focus of Thor’s preternaturally blue eyes. “Is it sore?”

“No, I--it's fine, thank you. I just--” Thor hesitated and his gaze dropped away. “I didn’t know you had awakened.”

Loki smiled and stretched drowsily. “It's fine, Thor, I’d barely dozed off. My tattoo’s turned itchy. But what troubles you?”

A quick sigh huffed between them and Thor closed his eyes, blocking his fixed stare at the sheets. “No, brother, I mean... I didn’t know you were awake _then_. Otherwise, I would have _never_...”

Loki took in the growing, almost magenta flush to Thor’s skin and burst into soft, helpless laughter. “Oh Thor, please. Don’t let that worry you. It was merely a ploy to embarrass you tonight and I apologise for the attempt, really I do. It was _nothing_. If anything it was reassuring.” He chuckled again, face flushing as something akin to truth slipped out. “It was good to know it was something even _you_ did and I went right back to sleep anyway. It’s _fine_.”

_Fine._

He remembered waking up slowly, not quite stirring with his face still pressed close to Thor’s thick, golden throat. He’d been tucked up against his side just as he had been all afternoon, their hammock swaying gently in the early evening’s balmy breeze as he’d gradually become aware of his brother’s quiet but laboured gasps, lifting his lashes _just enough_ to watch Thor working himself over, his cock actually as large as all the rumours had suggested, and so oddly _real_ and alluring that Loki couldn’t tear his eyes away.

He’d caught his breath, stilling the startled jerk the sight had evoked, staying settled instead against his brothers side, his cheeks warm and his mouth dry as he’d watched Thor stroke himself quickly to completion, struggling to keep his own breathing low and even as Thor had spilt over his fist with a muffled, bitten-off cry.

He’d been glad of his somewhat overturned shape against Thor’s natural sprawl, the position enabling him to gently persuade his traitorous body back into softness as he lay there and counted Thor’s slowly evening breaths. Slowly, _jointly_ , they had sunk back into sleep together, unknowingly part of a memory Loki would long cherish for reasons he couldn’t quite grasp.

 _You were beautiful_ , he wanted to say, and he bit the inside of his cheek to better hold it in.

Thor slowly opened his eyes, the mortification in them as openly discernible as the fresh ink standing out against his skin. “I really thought you were asleep,” he rumbled quietly and Loki allowed himself a broader smile at the pang of adoration the simplicity of his statement wrought.

“For the most part, I was. I only woke long enough to realise what you were doing and then I fell back asleep. I mean, obviously, I took a moment to consider teasing you _rotten_ ,” Loki grinned just to get the echoed response from Thor, “but mostly I just noted that all the rumours were apparently _true_ and then I drifted off again.” Thor’s blush returned in full, but his eyes twinkled now as he reached down to poke Loki in the ribs.

“Oh yes, and what of your words to Tony, hm? Am I to gather genetics have served us both equally well or will you merely spread rumours to that end?”

Loki arched a brow, trembling minutely as something masquerading as truth and fiction both crested his tongue. “Oh let’s not have Father take all the credit, shall we? I imagine he merely ticked the ‘likely to be generously endowed’ box on the order form thinking it would mean the stork would carry me into the nursery in a money bag.”

Thor rolled his eyes, his exhale a huff of tolerant amusement even as he shook his head. “Loki, why do you always say such things?” He cocked his head, tired eyes careful with concern as he reached out a warm, wide palm to curl about Loki’s nape, shaking him once, lightly, even as Thor gentled the small movement with a rub of his thumb pad at the hinge of Loki’s jaw. “Sometimes I swear I cannot seem to reach you past these jokes, the clever words you wield, no matter how hard I hard I try.”

Heat burned at the backs of Loki’s eyes and it was all he could do to hold his tongue on a cascade of his fears and doubts, silently beseeching Thor to question him no further as he blinked away the hot glow, smiling grimly and shaking his head once, stiffly, as Thor sighed.

“You do not have to tell me if you do not want to, but should you ever wish to share the reason for the distance you sometimes seem to insist upon, know that I am always here for you, alright?”

Loki’s mouth twisted before he could prevent it and Thor’s smile contracted into a grimace as he apparently read Loki’s thoughts. “I know that in our past I have been a bad brother. It’s alright, don’t look so enraged, Loki, you cannot fight me for my own honour.” He released Loki’s nape to skate warm fingers along shoulders abruptly hunched beneath his touch, rubbing circles against Loki’s collarbone until he unclenched both his fists and teeth, defensive of Thor against even his own criticism.  “I know it took me far too long to realise just what I had in you during our childhoods, and then I lost all sense of self and family when I first came to college.”

His smile turned wry and his gaze turned inward momentarily. “I appreciate that Stark may be a lot to take, but it is in large part due to him that I came to realise how shamefully I was neglecting everyone in my life when I was involved with Jane.” Thor’s hand slid back upwards to cup his jaw, and Loki’s heart beat frantically in his chest. Tiny tremors wracked him for no reason he could fully pinpoint beyond the tone of total sincerity in Thor’s voice. “I hadn’t realised quite how badly I had let myself be carried away until I first beheld you here, before me, in Midgard. You’ve changed so much.” His smile turned oddly pleading. “But for all my absence, my aberrations, you’ve never felt… _unloved_ …have you, brother?”

Something seized in Loki’s chest as he shook his head, vehement even as a scant few tears spilled loose at the movement, silent in both his affection and misery as he surged forward to twine his arms about Thor’s shoulders.

He _hadn’t_. Not ever.

Even when jealous, tortured by the lack of Thor, sometimes only just across the room, flirting with someone at a party, or merely laughing with friends, Loki had never doubted his place in Thor’s heart. He was honestly sickened by himself as he realised that somehow, in these recent months of attempting to bind himself more tightly to his possibly soon to be severed sibling, it had ceased to be _enough._

He allowed Thor to tuck his head against the side of his, unsure of whatever soothing words were being whispered into his ear as he shuddered, all the recent torrent of feelings mounting in him until he found himself all but swept away on a tide of his own making. He gasped for breath as he was torn between the elation of knowing himself to be truly loved by his brother and the devastation of knowing it could never really be what he wanted from Thor.

He wanted his brother. He wanted him to always _be_ his brother and _yet_...

“Shh, Loki, it’s alright.” Thor squeezed him so tight Loki could scarcely draw breath enough to speak, let alone cry, panting as he made an attempt, nonetheless, squeezing Thor hard in return as he wept. Bitterly. “I don’t know what the problem is, but I promise you that there is _nothing_ we cannot solve together. It’s alright. I love you, brother, it’s alright…”

He turned his face into Thor’s throat and pressed his mouth hard to the heat and strength of him.

“I love you, too... brother,” he croaked and let himself cling closer for just a little while, resolving that when he next awoke, he would conquer the shameful need inside him and be content to just be Thor’s, in whichever way he could.

++

His resolve was initially jeopardised within hours of his waking, his phone chiming from his pocket as he stared listlessly out the train window, midway back to Asgard.

**[It’s no good, Loki, I’ve looked all over, and I can’t seem to find my fee.]**

Loki’s brows scrunched together, his mind dulled from brooding and not enough sleep before he’d left to catch the train home.

**[ _Your what?_ ]**

He choked, surprise and shame warring as amusement and arousal both punched through him at Thor’s swift response.

**[Well, you crept from my bed before sunrise without so much as a word, so Clint informed me that makes me your whore, and therefore the payment for my services should have been left at the bedside, so to quote him – where’s my money?]**

Quickly followed by.

**[Clint says I was also supposed to call you a bitch. My apologies.]**

Loki’s thumbs were flying before he could restrain himself.

**[ _Don’t act like you didn’t know what this was, harlot. A comfy bed and big blue eyes aren’t enough to entrap a son of Odin.]_**

Thor’s reply sped through to buzz against his fingertips before Loki had finished shaking his head at his own foolish grin, relieved beyond words to still have their silliness despite the low swoop of seriousness and resolve in his belly.

**[You cad! I willingly defaced my very skin for you and yet there’s not so much as a dollar on my nightstand. Clint and Bruce each say ‘for shame’.]**

Loki had to close his eyes for a moment, a warm tide suffusing his cheeks, satisfaction and another low bolt of arousal shooting through him at the sense memory of Thor against his chest, the rich black of that tattoo-- _Loki’s_ tattoo--against Thor’s skin.

**[ _That you did, brother. The drinks are on me next time._ ]**

**[Consider my honour restored. Next weekend?]**

Feeling the warmth leach from him, Loki frowned, sighing, thinking on his new plan to get over the madness that left him with a hankering to destroy the only good relationship still left in his life.

**[ _Maybe._ ] **

He twisted back to face the window and returned his gaze to the distance unfolding between them once again.

 


	7. Part Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds an ally, of sorts.

**Part 7:**

Loki’s willpower lasted only as long as it took his tattoo to heal and a different type of itching started deep in his skin the first weekend following his last visit to Midgard.

He ignored it as best he could, taking himself off to Asgardian venues as yet unexplored, rubbing himself up against a multitude of men; faceless, nameless, useless husks with all too eager hands ready to shape and move his form with theirs as they simulated dance moves in the darker corners where he hid from his own mind.

But no matter how large or rough the hand, his thoughts turned back to Midgard and helplessness rose in him like nausea, the ache building in him until he had to clench his teeth to suppress the whelp-like whines as he deliberately kept himself from Thor’s side. He held out for two weeks--two excruciating weeks of Loki trying to starve out his fixation (he couldn’t allow it to be _feelings_ ) and Thor seemingly unable to bear the time it might take to achieve it.  Three weeks of Thor texting him to urge him down again faster, to stay longer, of jokes Clint had made, terrible lines Tony had tried on Steve and once, at 3 am, simply **[Bruce is snoring :( ]**.

The worst, by far, had been the picture of Thor’s healing tattoo, his phone pushed halfway into his open jeans for the shot, positioned close enough to his groin that Thor had had to block himself with his hand for decency. Loki had deleted it near instantly because he’d known he wasn’t strong enough to resist actually looking at it, given both access and permission, (he’d not been able to resist thinking about it instead, however, panting shamefaced against the shower tiles before bed).

He’d intended to make it to four weeks and beyond, ideally, when his mother had actually _suggested_ it, commenting at breakfast on Friday morning, at how well his studies were going, how if he wanted to go and see Thor it didn’t need to be a special occasion. She and his father understood what it was like to be eighteen, to want to spread your wings and fly a bit and, just so long as his grades didn’t slip, there was no need to mope around the house like a child missing his teddy bear.

He’d glared at her, biting back words of righteous fury at her raised brows and mocking look, one which he frequently saw on his own face, apparently inherited after all, and simmered down. He chose instead to loftily inform her that he had already been intending on visiting that coming weekend (no he _hadn’t_ , dammit) but that it was good to know they approved of his choices.

He’d ignored her apparently rigorously squelched smile, pecking her cheek as he left the room, his own already flushing with shame, hands shaking with repressed excitement as he threw a bag together to take to school with him. He spent his (ludicrously long) day, much to the dismay of his teachers, drumming his fingertips against desk after desk until he was finally able to cast himself aboard the first train he found after classes ended.

He dropped his bag off at the dorms, finding only Bruce there, muttering quietly to himself as he apparently attempted to download the entirety of medical science into his brain via a vicious staring competition with his books. Loki backed out carefully and quietly from the room before he could break his newfound friend’s focus.

Trying each of the infamous group’s hangouts sequentially, he accepted a drink in each with no more than a coy smile and the promise to return if he could.  He waited just long enough in each to finish said beverage before moving onto the next until finally, at the sixth bar, slightly buzzed and more relieved than he’d care to admit, he found them.

Thor, Tony, Steve, Clint and his rarely-glimpsed, long-distance girlfriend Natasha were all perched atop barstools about a table so small that it threatened to lopsidedly tilt all of their clustered drinks to the floor at any moment. Tony saw Loki as he stalked forward, smiling and signalling for Thor to turn around as Loki stepped close, only to find himself yanked into the open vee of Thor’s legs as he was crushed even closer on a delighted shout.

Laughing, Loki placed his hands against Thor’s shoulders to steady himself, thick forearms locked about him at his waist level and holding him so near that he genuinely couldn’t prevent his blush as Thor’s widespread thighs pressed about his own.

“By all that is wondrous, Loki! How are you suddenly here? I was only just speaking of you to Natasha!”

Across the tiny table, the petite redhead's eyes narrowed on Loki and he felt his blush rise further as he heard her mutter to Clint, “ _That’s_ the brother?” and so with Thor’s palms spreading over the small of his back and Tony’s abruptly focused gaze upon him, Loki forced a chuckle out.

“Oh, you know how it is, _speak the devil’s name and he shall appear_ and all that rot.” He smiled and felt his stomach turn a sudden somersault at the open affection in his brother’s gaze. “What are you sorry lot doing here anyway? It took me an age to track you down to this pitiful pickup joint.”

There was a sudden, absurd sympathy quickly writ across Tony’s face even as his mouth moved. “Oh, we’re just trying to get Rapunzel here laid after he told Tasha it’s been an aeon or so. We thought a little dim lighting and cheap, sparkly booze might help the ladies not notice he’s actually prettier than they are so y’know... _voilà_.”

Something cold and sharp made itself known in Loki’s gut even as Thor’s head jerked round to glare at Tony, his expression turned thunderous, and Loki, on a peal of rapidly faked laughter and before anyone could notice his own distress, swiftly interjected:

“Oh good lord, as though I’d not seen enough of your mating rituals over the years.” He rolled his eyes and jerked himself free of Thor’s hold as part of a seemingly repulsed response that had Clint chuckling and Steve looking decidedly uncomfortable, “But that is more than fine actually. I could stand to let off a little steam myself, in truth.” Loki forced a grin, blanking Thor’s stony expression and Tony’s assessing gaze as he took one, then two steps back towards the teeming crowd, intent on being as far from Thor’s eventual conquest as possible. “Meet you, shall we say, for breakfast, then?”

Thor slid down from his stool with a frown so forbidding that Loki almost bolted, just to be free of the shackles he could feel continually dragging him back to his brother’s side. “Loki,” he rumbled, “you need not go-“

“No, no, it’s fine, Barbie, you stay here and swing your hammer 'til you make a dent in the crowd. I’ll keep li’l bro here company on his quest.” Tony’s hand slowly bore Thor back onto his stool and he strode round to Loki’s side with not so much as a single glance back to where Thor stared.

Clint’s hand moved to lock about his wrist as he spoke in rapid, hushed tones to both Thor and an entirely disconcerted-looking Steve, his words holding them both in place even as Tony’s hand at Loki’s elbow swiftly steered them into the crowd.

“C’mon, Elvira, I know just the place.”

++

After Tony summoned his driver from seemingly nowhere, Loki shouldn’t have been surprised to find himself swiftly relocated to Chez Stark, but somewhere between blocking out the mental image of Thor intertwined with yet another beautiful brunette and the complimentary alcohol supplied from the mini fridge in Tony’s car, Loki was feeling decidedly off his game.

He walked from window to window, unsteady, the vast expanse of glass that fronted the apartment somewhat dizzying, placed high above the city as it was, giving Loki something akin to the sensation of falling if he stood too close, swaying in place as he gazed down upon the streets below.

Becoming gradually more aware of Tony’s eyes following him from place to place, Loki smirked before turning to stroll casually toward where Tony was pouring each of them a complicated-looking drink.

“So, this is your master plan, is it? Get me here, get me drunk, get _me_? _”_

Tony scoffed even as his smile turned distinctly, purposefully lecherous. “Trust me Twilight, you’d know if I were out for a fuck, mostly because we’d be fucking.”

“The way you say it, it sounds rather more like a threat than a promise, Stark, and you’re getting sloppy,” Loki lifted his glass, eyes briefly on the crushed ice glittering within before he grinned smugly from just over the rim. “You’ve used ‘ _Twilight_ ’ before.”

Tony nodded, conceding even as he threw his hands up in good-humoured surrender, his tone long-suffering as he smiled in turn. “You’ve got me. Not only do I not...well ok... _no longer_ do I actively want to fuck you what with my focus being now entirely diverted, you’re getting something less than my ‘A’ game on the cutesy nickname front. Forgive me, oh great and terrible...Vampira?” He hesitated, striking a thoughtful pose, “Angelina? Monica Bellucci? Morticia? Liz Taylor? Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “How ‘bout Bettie Page, huh? Y’know, on account of your bringing all the boys to the yard, so to speak.”

Loki rolled his eyes, taking his drink and moving away to settle back into the plush leather of the nearest of the many sprawling sofas dotted about Tony’s palatial living space. “I believe _Loki_ will suffice,” he purred, almost affable even as he deliberately placed his boots upon the butter soft, gleaming white leather, “Failing that ‘My Lord’ always goes down nicely. Speaking of which...” He bared his teeth momentarily in a parody of genial interest. “How _is_ Mr Rogers?”

Tony beamed, visibly delighted even as he affected a casual slump into the armchair opposite, placing his own feet on the coffee table between them. “Oh, right... Gotta be on the offensive now you’re on my home turf, yeah? Ok well, we can do that, sure. The implication here being that he--Steve--should be _going down nicely_?” He cocked a single, thick eyebrow and let his face fall into an approximation of shock and horror before swiftly switching back to amused nonchalance. "You fiend, how dare you, et cetera. No really, I wouldn’t know. Mine is the love that dare not speak its name, not that I don’t say ‘Steve’ daily or anything and I can’t stop flirting with him _ever_ without giving up on breathing, too but no, no passionate declarations as yet. Or y’know... ever.”

Loki smiled; genuinely amused for all that he hated being forced into an unknown location with a man he couldn’t always quite fathom. It was a pity that Thor had found him first really; Loki could have used a twisted, self-loathing narcissist for his own quiver of fun but possibly dangerous friends “Because you are, in fact, paying darling Steve’s tuition?”

Tony’s face transformed into an impenetrable mask and Loki mentally congratulated himself.

_Direct hit._

“It really isn’t particularly difficult to work out, Tony. You should make it official before the Super Scholar figures it out for himself. For a blond he’s really quite startlingly shrewd, is he not? Anyway, I assume that you’ll be overturning all of Stane’s decrees once you reach your majority as it is. So, why not make it known _now_ , that you’ve personally shouldered the _Stark_ charitable funds whilst the sadly and thus far unimpeachable Obadiah explores new avenues for Stark Industries and continues to attempt to make a god of himself in the eyes of the media?”

He paused to take a careful sip from his glass, welcoming a sliver of an ice cube as it slid across his tongue to be crunched with relish as Loki met and held Tony’s gaze.

“It’s well known that he’s only holding the crown for you, and equally acknowledged is the fact that your esteemed late Father took great interest in cases like Steve’s. The sooner you make it less than comment-worthy, the sooner you’ll convince him you’re not actually looking to be... _reimbursed._ ” Loki couldn’t help but smile widely, devilish as he tried to tempt Tony’s playful side back to the foreground. “Were I you, I would embrace honesty with some great speed, Stark, lest someone with less pure motives than yourself decides to... shall we say ‘educate’ him?”

Something akin to calculation shone briefly in Tony’s eyes as his mask seemed to fall away, leaving him smirking as he saluted Loki with his own still oddly full drink.

“You’re nothing if not right, of course. Best to close the deal before someone else with eyes for built, blue-eyed blonds with strong leanings towards nobility snaps him straight up, yeah? Of course, having just neatly surmised my own issue with the beauteous and brilliant Steve to be nothing more than an issue of honesty, let’s try a little truth of your own. What’s holding you up with brother dearest? I mean, aside from that fact that he, y’know, _isn’t_.”

Loki stilled so entirely that he briefly wondered if the sudden surge of ice had literally frozen him in place, unable to do more than blink, breathe and clench his teeth as Tony leaned forward, the gleam in his gaze building until it was like being centred in the beam of a bright and unmerciful spotlight.

“That first day I saw you, I knew it. Stupid really, to let the supposed _facts_ blind me to it, to let everyone talk me out of my conclusions. But I was _right_ , right? Ok, maybe not 100% right on the fuck-toy thing because I thought you guys were _actually_ fucking instead of just _wishing_ you were, which, by the way, you so clearly _are,_ that frequently I’ve had to go jerk off after watching you guys eye-fuck the hell out of each other. But you’re, what? Adopted? So where’s the harm, right? Or is it worse than that? Are you only 50% free to lust after him or something? Gotta say my money’s always been on your being a cuckoo child. But hey, if there really is blood involved there, then maybe just ignore me. Of course, were it up to me, I’d just set up enough three-ways until he got used to crossing swords, as it were, and then just go for it. Have you seen those identical twins online? Hell, if they can still sit around the family dinner table and make nice with Mom and Dad, then there’s got to be the hope of at least a downtown handshake or something for you guys.”

He sat back, taking an entirely too-satisfied gulp from his own glass, no longer bothering to hide the curiosity that had apparently been percolating within him for some time. “So which is it, half-blood prince or cabbage patch kid?”

Loki blinked slowly at him, hoping that his shaking wasn’t as horribly visible as it felt. He rapidly weighed the merits of smashing his glass over and over into Tony’s face until his knowledge was no longer a threat, against the idea that maybe, just this once, it would be ok to talk to someone about the seething pit of stress, longing and betrayal that had settled low in his belly.

_Maybe_.

He said nothing, letting his gaze drop to watch the ice in his drink slowly disintegrating and spared it a moment’s sympathy. The glass trembled minutely in his grasp, tensing at Tony’s huff of mild exasperation.

“Taking the fifth, huh? I get it, hell, I’ve done it, but here’s what I _don’t_ get. As you’ve been so kind as to _not_ correct me I’m going to continue my assumption that, as always, I am 100% correct as per your parentage, or, y’know, lack thereof, as the case may be, but my point is this--“

“At no point _ever_ ,” Loki interjected, his voice rising, raw, from his throat like a salt cloud, “have I actually been told or treated like I was anything _less,”_ his voice crackled and he glared down at his lap for the barest moment, furious at his own body’s betrayal of him, “than a beloved son and brother.”

There was a beat as contemplation settled slowly over Tony’s features as silence fell, albeit for only the barest moment, but there was somehow still time enough for Loki to watch a slow dawning of understanding in the deep brown of Tony’s gaze before the shorter man abruptly rose.

“Alright, I get it. I mean, I don’t GET IT, but yeah, ok, I get it.” He stalked over to place his glass (swiftly emptied between strides) atop the polished surface of the bar, before popping an olive into his mouth from the small dish that resided there alongside the readied dishes of lime, lemon and cherries. “Although, I gotta say, it’s not just _you_ the lies are hurting, Juliet, and you’ve never really struck me as the type to be too scared to rock the boat. Food for thought, yeah? Though, huh, if you need _actual_ food I’m not sure what’s in. Jarvis probably left dinner in the kitchen so yeah, help yourself. The spare room’s through there and I’ll see you for breakfast whenever I wake up. So, _ciao_ or whatever.” And so, with an entirely irreverent salute, Tony strolled off to bed as though he hadn’t shattered the fragile axis only just supporting Loki’s universe.

The crushed ice eventually melted until there was nothing left but murky water with what might once have been alcohol drifting through it. The glass remained clasped between Loki’s palms until the sky beyond the floor to ceiling windows of Chez Stark started to sluggishly brighten. Loki stayed, near locked in place, on the sofa, unable to move until he could decide whether or not having Tony definitely know the truth was more or less likely to lead him to his doom.

At around 4:10 a.m., Loki eventually reached a point where cognitive thought was no longer an option and, giving himself up to the pervasive sense of helplessness that had crept over him with the long night’s chill, he dumped his own glass atop the bar and slowly made his way to bed.

A loud crash woke him.

Loki shot upright, yanking his sheet about him as he bolted for the spare room door as his still sleep-fogged brain noted the bright sun pouring in past the curtains even as it fastened itself onto the familiar roar that emanated from somewhere within the apartment.

“WHERE IS HE? I’VE BEEN TRYING HIS PHONE FOR HOURS WITH NO RESPONSE. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM?”

“Easy, Conan, the kid’s asleep. He--” Tony’s amused tones choked off abruptly and Loki launched himself into the living room in time to watch Thor lift Tony from the floor with one massive hand clasped about his throat.

“Thor, NO!” Loki shrieked, despite himself, a hand flung out in horror even as Steve barrelled into Thor’s side, knocking all three to the floor and breaking Thor’s hold.

Instantly furious, Loki stalked across the room, drawing on deep reserves of dignity and tightening his sheet about him as he went, pausing directly before Thor, who had managed to pull himself up to his knees as he gazed at Loki.

“Still not learned to THINK before you ACT, brother?” Loki seethed, “Honestly, these temper tantrums of yours were bad enough during adolescence. In a supposed _adult_ they are nothing short of pathetic!”

Thor slowly rose, unfurling to his full height with a solemn, grave air entirely at odds with his actions from moments before. He dropped his gaze from Loki’s as he turned to a still somewhat purple Tony.

“Loki is right. I have been congratulating myself for some years now over the conquest of my fury, but it seems,” he took a deep, shuddering breath as he extended a hand to the wheezing Tony, “that I have a long way yet to go before I can deem it a victory. My apologies, Tony, my temper has long been a source of shame and, after the last few hours of worry, I’m ashamed to say I let it get the better of me. I am _truly_ sorry.”

Loki took a slow, quiet breath, his skin prickling with the thrill a humble Thor always invoked. It was at times such as these that he felt he could almost see the incomparability of Thor’s soul, as though worthiness was literally written into his skin and Thor _shone_ with it, even as he bowed his head in remorse.

“That’s ok, big guy, I’ve been known to be a bit hot-headed myself.” Tony smiled, shaking Thor’s hand firmly even as Steve glowered beside him. “Just glad you’re not the ‘dick punching’ sort.”

They each smiled and Loki huffed, only just resisting the old urge to stamp his foot. “On the contrary, Stark, it is _not_ ok. A few hours of my apparently _unauthorised_ absence does not give you leave to go snarling about, frightening the villagers, Thor! If I choose to go out all night, clubbing, drinking or even screwing Tony’s brains out it has NOTHING to do with YOU.”

Thor’s eyes, previously lit with deep burning shame, seemed to lose all focus and light as Loki’s words drifted over him. “ _Nothing_ ,” he echoed on a whisper and Loki glanced uncomfortably away from Thor, not able to let himself bask in what looked like anguish, steeling himself to remind him that Thor could also fuck whom _he_ liked, Tony included, if he so chose, when his gaze abruptly lit upon Steve. Rogers had paled, his natural ‘corn-fed’ golden tan seeming to dim as he gazed at Tony with the same undisguised heartache that Loki had witnessed on his own features in the mirror recently.

Tony, for all his bluster, stood like stone, not meeting anyone’s gaze even as his jaw clenched, silently upholding Loki’s speech with the sort of twisted masochism that can only come from what Loki recognised as the idiotic attempt to support a friend, a friend that Loki hadn’t actually realised he’d become until that point.

He swallowed and tightened his sheet again, wishing for armour, a robe, _ANYTHING_ if it would just create a better barrier between his feelings and his resolve as he settled his focus back on Thor. “Oh don’t get yourself into a state again, Thor, honestly, I’ve never known over-protectiveness like it. Tony’s not sullied my virtue any more than I have his. Not only do I not particularly care for brunets but, even if I had, it would have been for nought. We spent a fair portion of those _hours_ that my phone was apparently set on silent discussing the fact that Tony here is too stupidly noble to tell our all-American, super-scholarship hero here that he’s halfway insane for him, for fear it’ll put Steve in an awkward position.”

Loki grinned, brimming with what would be malice were he not so confident of the surprising amount of _good_ he was doing. “A pity, too, because some of the awkward positions are by _far_ the most fun, but hey, if Tony’s moral code doesn't allow him to look past a simple twist of fate, then I’m _certain_ Steve will find he doesn’t need to look too far for someone to console him.”

He winked at Steve with what he hoped was enough humour to stop Tony from turning on him but swiftly had to strangle his grin down to a smirk. Tony’s attention was entirely focused on Steve’s keen blue gaze, the rosy lips that rivalled even Thor’s absurd manly-prettiness parting on what sounded like a joyful exhalation of Tony’s name. The word was both a sigh and plea at once, and Loki had to turn his back before he started laughing at the ease with which happiness could be achieved.

Or destroyed.

Without so much as a spare glance backward to gage Thor’s reaction, Loki walked away.

“I’ll be just a second, Thor,” he called back as he entered the spare room, his clothes scattered far and wide across the otherwise empty space. “I think you owe me first shot at your shower AND a damn decent breakfast after this little fracas, don’t you think?”

There was a silence and then an almost depressingly acquiescent reply of, “I’ll be in the cab” reached Loki, and he jerked his clothes on with ragged, furious motions and couldn’t remember when last he’d found victory to be so unappetising.

 


	8. Part Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little stilted between Thor & Loki in the wake of Loki & Tony's bonding weekend.
> 
> [Short chapter, sorry but next week's needs to be a double so hopefully it'll equal out along the way :) ]

**Part 8:**

For the first week or so beyond that night, everything was much as it always had been with only two notable exceptions.

The first was, of course, that Steve and Tony became _Steve and Tony_ with so little fuss that it seemed perhaps that they should have always have been together. Stark’s admittedly rougher edges were being polished by the diamond-brightness of Steve’s own moral code, and Steve’s old fashioned grace bore the occasional cracks with the odd, whimsical wickedness seeping through that only exposure to Tony could bring.

Overall, it was quite a satisfying experiment in Loki’s eyes. He might have been tempted to try his hand at further matchmaking (had he actually cared enough about anyone else to put effort into making them happy) but Bruce was blissfully in love (albeit from afar) with the lovely Betty, and even the somewhat reticent Clint maintained a tempestuous relationship with the mysterious Natasha.

(Anyone pursuing Thor could, for all he cared, as always, die in a ditch.)

The second was that Thor himself seemed to retreat into his shell somewhat. He didn’t suddenly stop texting, stop inviting Loki, but he appeared to accept Loki’s renewed absence with a little too much ease, encouraging Loki to come to visit only if he felt like it, to not let Thor get in the way of his own social life, et cetera.

Loki felt annoyed with himself for being annoyed by this. Thor was seemingly respectful of Loki’s independence. This gave him the room to rush around getting hand-jobs from broad-shouldered, towering blonds left, right and centre should he so wish, so it rankled that Loki was unable to truly enjoy these encounters. Thor’s face hovered behind his lids, his name aching behind his lips as Loki tried to enjoy this supposed freedom he’d been granted, but felt nothing so much as _set adrift_. How _convenient_ for Thor that he abruptly learn the lesson in not overcrowding his brother, in not keeping Loki brought to heel, just as he was feeling the chilling bite of celibacy.

He wouldn’t, after all, be accused of _ditching him_ , if Loki was not there to ditch, to begin with.

As the end of the second week approached, his mother ( _Frigga_ , dammit, they were none of them _his_ ) started making gently inquiring noises about whether she should throw a summer party or something of that nature. “It has been, after all, _so_ long since everyone has last seen Thor.”

(And wouldn’t that just be perfect? Staying away from Midgard to avoid having to watch Thor touching, _wanting_ , anyone who wasn’t Loki, and instead have to endure people coming to the house to pursue Thor there instead; perhaps _this time_ it would be Loki’s bedroom that Sif--exultant, _triumphant_ \--would back Thor into?)

Hoping to derail this new plan entirely, Loki dutifully (and dishonestly) told Frigga that he’d ask if Thor had any plans to come home during the break before next semester began, the very next time they spoke. The lie had only just left his lips when there came a sudden chime from his phone as Thor’s personalised alert seemingly stolen as Loki raised an eyebrow at the screen. Stark was clearly the author of the text before him.

**[HEY, VESPER LYND, GET YOUR OBSTINATE ASS DOWN TO MIDGARD ASAFUCKINGP BECAUSE WE’VE GOT AN INVITE TO A MAJOR BLOWOUT AT THE WAKANDAN CAMPUS AND STEVE’S GOT FRIENDS DOWN THERE, AND SO HAVE I. THE WHOLE GANG’S GOING. THERE’LL BE BOOZE AND HOTTIES ENOUGH FOR ALL, EVEN MELODRAMATIC EMO-TWINKIES SO SERIOUSLY GET YOUR DELIGHTFUL BITCHFACE DOWN HERE ALREADY ;)]**

Carefully masking his expression, Loki excused himself first from the breakfast table and then for the tell-tale skip of his heart. It seemed that Loki had made absolutely no progress on his path back to the beloved hero worship he was confident he could yet regain if only Loki refused to view Thor as a _man_ , focusing instead on the laughing, annoying, supportive brother he’d glimpsed each Christmas for just a handful of days each year.

He couldn’t let that inward gaze slide sideways to their summers yet, not with the memories of Thor’s azure-tinted scrutiny from just inches away still seared through him. He could almost hear their voices hushed as they spoke of secrets and ambitions, rocked to sleep in the bottom of their dinghy, moored at the end of the dock, or snuggled close for warmth and comfort both beneath their blankets in sleeping bags in abandoned tree houses, upon the ground between the bushes, or in their own hammock, blanket-less and twisted together despite the heat, happy just to be together.

Those memories were precious but too closely connected to Loki’s own corrupted yearnings and chained to a whole other set of troublesome new memories.

_Careful fingers pressing balm atop his raw flesh, the endorphin-blurry heat of Thor’s eyes on him, smiling, as Loki held his brother’s weight against him, his words weaving worlds before Thor’s enrapt friends, the blush of Thor’s cheeks, pressing close and apologising for his own needs back in their hammock, enfolding Loki completely to promise him that there was nothing they could not face together… It’s alright, I love you, brother, it’s alright._

Straightening his shoulders against the avalanche of his apparently lost control and crumbling barricades, he told himself that it was ok to go down to Midgard because, really, he was oddly charmed by Tony’s need to include him, and because he was curious to meet the other members of the group, and then maybe because he deserved to go and have fun with his big brother, and he missed him and it would be fun to spend the weekend in Midgard, damn it.

He very carefully didn’t think about his fears of Thor’s new distance and having to endure Thor picking off Wakandan girls left and right, or the fact that Thor had met Jane at a campus mixer and had immediately dropped Loki like a bad habit for over a year.

Toying with the idea of just showing up, as he had on weekends previously, he found himself texting Thor to let him know he was coming. He’d convinced himself, by the time he hit ‘Send’, that it was just good sense, to make sure there was actually room for him if all their friends would be present, to make sure he didn’t miss whatever time they were headed off to the Wakandan campus on the opposite side of the state.

It wasn’t even _slightly_ because a part of him was worried that he might not be welcome after Thor had seemingly retreated to a distance to allow Loki the space to do all the things he’d so vehemently claimed he could and would do without the need for Thor’s permission. This was just as well, really, because that way he wasn’t stricken to the core when Thor’s reply read merely,

**[Stark will be pleased. He said you would come. Thank you for informing me. It will take two hours’ drive to reach Wakanda, so please be here before 2 pm.]**

Loki’s typical response to disinterest from others was usually apathy. He didn’t much care if he was liked by the general populace (he would of course, happily settle for being worshipped, a figure of infamy, unshackled by the niceties that had regularly driven him to distraction during his formative years) but it was shocking to find himself at the end seemingly unwelcomed by Thor, his apparent interest on seeing Loki barely lukewarm at best.

Loki genuinely didn’t know what to do.

Thor had always run hot-blooded; his passion and his enthusiasm and, yes even his rage, all burning so brightly that feeling the full force of his focus on any level was sometimes like looking directly into the sun. Loki had never before known him like this, distant and even tepid, and he was horrified to think that either he’d been a bad enough influence on his own beloved idol that Thor, in turn, had embraced passive aggression, keeping his rage bottled down deep, waiting for the chance to let it loose, or _worse¸_ that Thor, finding he did not care for Loki’s newly fledged form, might find he did not care for Loki as he once did.

Loki hesitated, halfway between his partially packed bag and his walk in, no longer torn between what to wear so much as whether to attend or to do literally _anything_ else.

Thor hadn’t actually seemed angry about Loki’s having left with Tony when last he had seen him, albeit quieter and deflated after his fit of temper than if he had been genuinely irked. Loki wondered idly if he was being punished in the same way he might punish Sandu, had he overstepped or blurred the lines between their worlds. Thor had always lacked the dissembling nature for spite, only lashing out on the rarest of occasions when truly hurt and Loki, try as he might, could see no reason for him to be hurt, so, uneasily, he continued to pack his weekend bag and hoped that it was nothing more than Thor overcorrecting his ‘protective brother’ mode.

He hoped so.

He wasn’t ready to lose Thor.  Not yet.

++

He arrived at the frat house just before two to find Tony gleefully waving at him from through the roof of a limo, (because if you had to take a road trip, better take it in style, apparently) and Tony’s personal driver ‘Happy’ putting the group's bags into the trunk.

“Really Stark, even knowing how tacky and obvious you can be, I did not predict this.”

Tony lowered his shades, clearly readying a retort, when a smooth voice spoke from the stairs behind him. “You mean, you didn’t see it with your second sight? Then, brother, if indeed you are not a witch, why do you dress like one?”

Loki winced, grinning stiffly as he turned to face Thor, resplendent with his hair pulled back into a tiny, scruffy sort of braid, blue eyes scoring him, a match for the well-loved, well-worn pale denim he was wearing with his grey hoodie. Loki was reasonably sure everyone would be getting changed before they actually went to the party, but Thor looked mouth-watering enough that Loki needed a quick clear of his throat, swallowing quickly before he could even attempt an answer.

“Hey,” he said eloquently, mourning his total lack of progress in not lusting after his brother. His heart skipped several beats as Thor came down the last few stairs from the door with his bag slung over his shoulder as he moved to stand before Loki.

“What, no hug?” Thor asked, tone oddly forbidding in the beat before his mouth pulled into a wicked, lopsided grin. “Come here, you.”

For the barest second, Loki thought he saw something sad and vulnerable almost hovering at the back of his brother’s smile, and it set a spark to what little remained of his resolve. He flung himself at Thor, his pledge to himself to be less tactile entirely up in flames as he allowed Thor his swoop, snatching Loki up as they collided to swing him around, laughing.

He’d wondered, wretchedly, if Thor was pulling back from him in recognition of Loki’s rights to do as he liked as an adult and felt the worse for it. It had never occurred to him that Thor might have been doing so because he thought that Loki _wanted_ it that way.

“Stars above, Loki, I hope Midgard is in your Top 3. I know, I know, you don’t want to talk about your acceptances, but I don’t think it’s fair of you to allow me to become accustomed to seeing your face every few weeks only for you to possibly end up all the way down at Svartalfheim, rooming with Malekith and worlds away from being able to visit your lonely brother.”

Thor crushed Loki hard against him, letting him drag slightly against his body as he let him down the few inches to the floor and Loki bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the bloom of heat across his cheeks, very aware of Stark’s eyes on them.

“Firstly, Thor, no, I don’t want to talk about college yet. I’m sick to my back teeth of school. Allow me the illusion that my studies are almost over, will you? Secondly, Malekith? _Svartalfheim_? I beg you, kill me first, if you please. Thirdly--don’t roll your eyes at me, it’s your fault for being an idiot--your entire friend group seemingly hangs out wherever you are, in your dorm or about your neck, you are _not_ lonely, you overgrown puppy. Lastly,” Loki clamped down on the surge of fear that made him suddenly certain that they would be parted by the truth about his parentage, his _feelings_ , at any time now, “No matter what college, campus or planet I end up on, there is nothing preventing you from hopping on a train and coming to see _me_ , you realise?”

Thor smiled, slow and warm, and the tug in Loki’s gut told him to tell him that he _had_ been accepted to Midgard. That, until he’d discovered that he was _nothing_ to him, he’d been ready to follow in Thor’s and their father’s footsteps, excited at the prospect of possibly _rooming_ with him during his final years of economics, finance and business management as Loki began his first year of the same.

_Rooming with Thor_.

Loki suppressed a full body shiver, banishing the mental images as they arrived, refocusing on Thor’s voice.  

“Invitation noted,” he rumbled.

“That’s like, a communal thing, right? I mean, you literally just pointed out how we’re always with him so, I’m just saying, if you invite Golden Boy there, you’re gonna get the group, yeah? Cos otherwise it means you don’t want us and if you don’t want us then my feelings are hurt and if my feelings are hurt, _well_ ,” Stark pulled a comically regretful face, “I don’t let mean boys who hurt me in my limo. Just…so you know.”

Turning his head to catch a suddenly very casual glance from Tony’s perch, who swung his legs through the sunroof, apparently blasé now that Loki was looking directly at him.

“It’s an open invitation for anyone foolish enough to wish my company, Stark. Make of that what you will.” Loki could hear Bruce behind them somewhere and Clint laughing at something uttered in Natasha’s seldom-heard dulcet tones and, screwing his game-face quickly into position, he pulled gently at Thor’s elbow, turning him towards him as Happy stowed their luggage.

Loki suddenly felt a lot less like ever keeping his distance from Thor. Folding his fingers against his palms to prevent himself from reaching out to brush away the twist of not quite doubt that still lurked at just the edges of Thor’s far-too-welcome smile, Loki reminded himself that brothers might be tactile but not in the ways that he was wishing.

“You alright?” Thor husked into Loki’s ear as he squeezed him tight, his standard bone-crushing greeting apparently doubled by way of delay, it seemed.

“Yes, I’m fine.” _Now_.

“Ok then, if you guys are done with the random PDA, Thor, can you get into the limo and physically buckle Stark in? You think he’s bad in a normal car? I’ve literally seen Happy turn cars around and bring him straight back here if he thinks Tony’s not even gonna try and curtail his asshole-ish-ness, so you wanna go rein in Richie Rich there before we’re all out a ride to this shindig?”

Thor released Loki with a patient sigh, already moving towards the car, leaving Loki on the sidewalk with an uncomfortable looking Steve and an oddly jittery-looking Bruce, but with both Clint and Tasha’s gazes hidden behind sunglasses.

Loki smiled, extending a hand to the two almost-strangers who only ever seemed to be around to witness the fallout of their family drama, and held it there for a beat before slowly, stiffly, withdrawing his hand. “Nice to properly meet you both.” He nodded and a perfect eyebrow raised behind Natasha’s glasses as she appeared to carry on staring at him.

“Hm,” she answered, mouth twitching into a tiny smile. “We’ll see.”

They strolled over to the car and Loki turned an inquisitively lifted brow on Bruce and Steve. “Should I just say sorry now, Bruce, for my inadvertently upsetting Thor or are you used to the effect of my dastardly ways upon his temperament by now?”

Bruce snorted, grinning awkwardly as he shook his head. Steve stepped forward to answer for him. “You gonna do it again?”

“Meaning…annoy Thor?” Loki frowned.

“No, are you gonna _upset_ him, like you said.”

Loki bit his lip, shrugging lopsidedly. “Not on purpose?”

Bruce beamed. “There ya go. Knew he didn’t mean it. Ok, guys let’s get this show on the road already!”

Steve smiled fondly after Bruce’s departing back before flicking his eyes back to Loki. “You’re damn lucky Betty’s going to be at this thing or else I figure he’d be giving you a harder time than all of us. He _is_ the one who had to share a room with Thor after all.”

Loki winced again, unused to caring what others thought about him. “The thing is, Stephen, whilst I understand from the texts I had from Thor that you and Tony are very happy together, I still feel I ought to apologise--a rare sensation for me, frankly--because, in trying to make Thor unclench himself regarding my non-existent love life, I rather stuck my oar right into the heart of yours.”

Steve pulled a face, shrugging. “You gonna do it again?” he reiterated, and Loki couldn’t help a smirk.

“Inadvertently gift you a love life, or meddle in it?”

Steve did the whole ‘ _Greek statue_ ’ thing with his face that Tony had been rhapsodising about for weeks behind his back, looking both stern and amused all at once. Had Steve not been a taken man or Loki not quite so overwhelmingly fixated on his own living god of a brother, Loki might have been sorely tempted to jump him.

“Ideally, neither,” he deadpanned, and Loki mimed crossing his heart.

“I’ll do my best, _Captain_.”

Steve grinned ruefully and clapped him on the shoulder, leading him towards the car.

“It’s like Bruce said, we figured you wouldn’t be trying to hurt Thor--or any of us--on purpose.”

“No,” Loki echoed, eyes on Thor’s laughing face inside the limousine, “not on purpose.”

 


	9. Part Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There ain't no party like a Wakandan party cos a Wakandan party is just a thinly veiled excuse for the author to get her somewhat incestuous characters drunk... (*checks Google again* Yup, that's definitely how that quote's supposed to go :P )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My bad, btw. This isn't the double upload chapter I was thinking of to make up for last weeks short jobby, but this one's bigger and full of shameless drunken lusting to make up for it I swear!

**Part 9:**

“So, let me get this straight,” Sam (Wilson, Loki thought he’d heard, several drinks ago) continued “you knew full well that he never misses and you _still_ let me try and take that punk on? Not cool, Steve, not cool.”

“Hey, I tried to tell you. Everyone heard me tell him, right? I was benevolent, I attempted to use my powers for good!”

Sam snorted loudly. “Please, Stark. You attempted to use your powers to suck up to me cos you’re getting busy with my boy, here. It’s sad, man, seriously. Steve told me you had game!”

“He _did?_ ” Tony echoed with delight at almost the exact same second the guy seated to his right (Rhodes, if memory served, Stark’s lifelong friend for his sins) scoffed doubtfully, “He _DID_?” Laughter rang around their table, with the exceptions of Steve (who looked mortified) and Tony who, with his nose in the air, announced, “I have game dammit! I landed Steve didn’t I?”

“Technically you just stood there while Loki served you up to me on a platter.”

Sam cackled into his beer and Loki shrugged apologetically.

“My apologies, Steve. You clearly could have done better.” He grinned at Tony’s huff of outrage, winking at the narrow-eyed glare pointed his way. Steve blushed slightly and rested a hand at Stark’s nape to squeeze reassuringly. 

“I did just fine,” he murmured and Loki rolled his eyes to escape the wave of adoration cresting over the pair, crushing down the pang of envy as he let his eyes wander over their surroundings instead. They had set themselves up at their table not quite an hour before, lugging a cooler with them, along with as many of the margarita pitchers that the Wakandan dorms had laid on, as they could. 

It was fantastic weather for a party, balmy and hot, just on the edge of sticky, and Loki had long since shed his black leather jacket to roll up the sleeves on his green silk shirt and bask against the cool back of his chair. He idly contemplated the varied and unsteady hollering co-eds as they leapt through the misty haze of the oscillating sprinkler set far across the lawn for those who were overheated but not wanting to try the pool. Loki had already decided against taking his own dip, having personally witnessed a girl vomit into it not ten minutes before.

They were just far enough away from the main house, there at the end of the garden, that they could still hear the music and everybody else shrieking and laughing as they all tried to unseat Clint as ‘Beer Pong Champion’. Loki was feeling pleasantly tipsy, nursing his cocktails and ignoring the drinking games going on all around him in favour of keeping his head for as long as he could. Thor had already discombobulated him merely by his outfit alone in jeans almost as sinfully tight as Loki’s own, combined with a simple white t-shirt and dove grey jacket that made his eyes pierce straight through Loki each time their eyes met. So Loki smiled genially and tried to not give away the fact that he still was having trouble keeping everybody straight.

Aside from Steve, Tony, Clint and Natasha--Bruce was noticeably absent when finally within touching distance of his beloved Betty--there was Rhodes (or ‘Rhodey’) who was signed up for the Wakandan exchange semester from his own Air Force college, where, oddly enough, it seemed one of Steve’s friends from early childhood, whom Loki had met only in passing a few hours back, was also on military course exchange. 

Then there was Sam, who attended Wakanda purely for their cutting-edge department in emergency advancements for the forces and civilians alike and Wanda (who was AWOL from the Sokovian campus that weekend with her brother) but whose boyfriend Vis’ was practically the force behind the entire Wakandan computer sciences class. 

Prince T’Challa had somewhat stuck in Loki’s mind before being whirled away by his responsibilities as their host, but that was mostly because he planned on rubbing it into Sandu’s face like crazy the next time he saw him. San had had a crush on the heir to the Wakandan throne since puberty and for all Loki had gathered Stark had wealthy contacts everywhere, nobody had really expected to be partying with a member of actual royalty at the kegger that weekend. 

“It’s fine Cap, really. You don’t need to comfort me--well, absolutely, yeah, _do_ , cos that feels awesome--but I’ll have my revenge when you and I drive home alone in the morning and leave their mean, snarky, hungover asses behind.”

There was a generalised groan at just the thought of the following morning. Loki, unable to help himself, pointed out that as they had all been offered space to crash, that they could all get the train if need be or, he mentioned with a wicked grin, they could always find Happy and steal the keys now, should Tony not be feeling _quite_ so benevolent come the morning.

Before Tony could do more than look mock-horrified, Thor groaned again before pointing forbiddingly into Loki’s mischievous face and saying loudly, “No, Loki! Not again, dammit!” It was vehement enough a response that it startled the other occupants of the table. Wanda’s glass sloshed as she jerked away from Thor’s sternly pointing fingers.

“Not, not what again?” She blinked her large, bright eyes, her delightful accent just catching on the edge of every consonant as she looked between them both.

Thor narrowed his eyes at Loki across the table in mock aversion before drawling, “Stark, have you never wondered why I have never taken you up on your offer to borrow your cars? Or you, Steve, when you said that I might borrow your bike to go home to see Loki if I wished?”

_They had offered Thor transport so that he could get to him if needed._ Loki wasn’t quite sure why he found that so curiously affecting but he buried his smile in the lip of his drink, taking a deeper swallow than he meant to as Stark more than took Thor’s opener and ran with it.

“Well, no, I’m actually always wondering why you don’t take my _advice_ and just--”

“ _Tony!”_

 “Y’know what, I suspect my dulcet darling there would prefer I not continue that line of thought, so I’ll stick to the topic in question. So how come you haven’t? Taken my cars, that is, not anyone else.”

Steve looked beyond mortified, and Loki merely rolled his eyes. Tony hand-waved them each away, his focus on Thor as he sat forward.

“When I was fifteen, only a few months off sixteen, Loki broke into Father’s garage, hotwired his classic 300sl Gullwing Mercedes and took it to go street racing. After competing in the race, he had our local police chasing him round in circles until they finally managed to box him in, at which point we were arrested, held in a cell overnight and eventually dragged before a judge. Now, in light of our both being minors--not to mention the judge being a good friend of Father’s--we weren’t so much as given a fine, but neither of us are allowed to so much as think of trying for our driver's licenses until we each hit twenty-one.”

Loki folded his arms across his chest, quietly delighted that Thor had inadvertently left out all the best parts of that story as he waited for the others to pick up on the holes in the narrative.

“Wait, twenty-one? Why so long?”

“He took a 300sl?! The 1956 Gullwing?!”

“Now that is some terrifying white privilege shit right there.”

“Amen.”

Grimacing and inclining his head to where Rhodey and Sam had clinked glasses, Loki answered Tony, leaving Thor to hopefully answer Steve.

“Yes, it was the fastest; don’t look so scandalised Stark, I didn’t hurt it.”

Tony took a fortifying gulp of his margarita, looking oddly woozy, and Loki made a mental note to ask slightly too many probing questions about what cars his family had, in recompense for not knowing when to leave well enough alone, whether he knew the truth or not.

“And in answer to your question, Steve, I believe the argument was that we could be entrusted to Father for that time, for although we would both achieve our majorities before then, naturally, our inheritances, our livelihoods, as it were, considering Father’s plans for us, were by far the greater methods of control. So if we’re caught driving in Asgard, or anywhere, for that matter,” he paused to give Loki a significant look, “they’re allowed to recall us as adults and fine us then accordingly, and likely Father would find ways to monetarily punish us too.”

Wanda frowned, seemingly troubled, as Steve broke in again, with his pesky preference for the truth. “But, I don’t understand, you were punished for being his passenger? What, because you didn’t stop him? Because that seems grossly unfair.”

Loki _beamed_ and, catching it, Thor swore softly.

“What?” Steve murmured, nonplussed.

“The thing is, Steve,” Loki all but purred, “Thor has only just realised that how he’s been telling the story--for _years_ \--might I add, doesn’t quite reflect what happened. _He_ blames _me_ because, as he said, I broke into the garage, I hotwired and stole the car. The _courts_ blamed _him_ , however, because, after I took the Gullwing, Thor decided to come after me in Father’s E-type Jaguar. He also, inadvertently though he claims, joined the race, but the outrunning the police bit was all his idea because, well, it was just bloody great fun by then, am I right, Thor?”

Thor rolled his eyes, reluctantly grinning back, as Loki finished, “I’ve told him for years not to go blaming me, I never told him to come after me and I _certainly_ never told him to come back for me once he saw the police had me surrounded. I’d have never told them it was him and just think, _one_ of us could actually have been driving all this time had he held his tongue.”

Tony huffed and pointedly forbade either of them to go near his babies at any point unless he or Happy was in the driver’s seat. He then ruined his lofty tone by demanding to know who won (Loki, of course) but Loki’s attention was all for Wanda who had abruptly goggled and was now looking back and forth between Thor and Loki as though seeing them both for the first time.

“Wait, I am so sorry, it seems I have been oblivious indeed, but you said, you _both_ said, you, you are… brothers?”

Tony grimaced before swiftly hiding it in a swallow from his cup and Loki smiled neutrally. Thor twinkled with familiar mirth at the oft-repeated ‘ _misunderstanding’._ “Indeed we are.” Thor grinned genially. “Do not trouble yourself over it. Many have been fooled over the years because we do not look so very alike.”

Clint, strolled over just in time to catch the conversation as he reached into the cooler for a beer, he cracked up. “Oh, God,” he cried into the side of his bottle, holding it before his face as though it might shield him from Thor’s disapproving gaze. “Sorry, dude, sorry, it’s just, you just said it so sweetly, like _of course,_ that’s why people don’t think you’re brothers, and not _at all_ because of the puppy-eyes and the possessiveness and the sleeping all wrapped around each other like you can’t bear to be apart shit.”

Thor looked ready to reach across and punch Clint right in the face, and Loki might have joined him, had Wanda, agog, not swiftly repeated, “You sleep together? As in _together_?”

Tony jumped in before Loki had a chance to figure out if he was annoyed or amused by this sudden turn in the conversation. He felt oddly touched once again by Stark’s carefully casual tone, likely the only person as invested as himself in keeping their slowly warping relationship off the gossip radar.

“Just sleeping, if that’s what you’re asking, although I still say it’s a damn shame to have so much hotness contained within one household as it were. I mean, I’m a taken man myself these days but I know a ton of people who’d happily pay to sleep between these boys, and that’s without actually getting to anything like what they’d pay for an actual meat sandwich--“

“Tony, enough,” Steve said softly, his eyes on Wanda’s distinctly ruffled expression.

“I’m sorry,” she said, gently incredulous, “I do not mean to-- I mean to say, it is only that Pietro, my twin, is my best friend, my greatest ally in all things, but the thought of sleeping _with_ him, even without Stark’s _meat sandwich_ , strikes me as either sweetly childlike or...”

Thor stiffened as Loki watched and he felt bad for him, for his part in using his brother’s affection to feed the twisted part of him that wanted the _man_ , not the sibling, surprised then to suddenly realise that Thor was offended, not discomposed. “It is just who we are as brothers. I know it is different in every family, and especially with twins, I am sure, but Loki and I were raised more differently than most due to our father’s own upbringing. The small amount of time we had we spent together, morning, noon or night, and whilst I understand that sleeping together when Loki comes to stay with me is apparently disconcerting for our friends--” 

Here he shot a dirty look toward Clint, who immediately raised his hands and mouthed _‘Bruce told me_ ’ before quickly escaping back to the drinking game table. 

“But, as many have commented, we are not alike in many ways, and one of those is that I run very warm, Loki runs cool and so I am always seeking him out in the night as one might seek the cool side of the pillow and he is always burrowing under me in his sleep for my body heat.”

_Under him_? Tony mouthed at Loki while the others all stared at Thor and Loki steeled his face to not let his sudden surge of amusement shine through, looking politely towards Sam as he pulled a face, interjecting, “Much as I hate to side with that beer-pong hustling asshole, but you guys aren’t making it sound any better with the burrowing under each other shit.”

Thor’s mouth twisted unhappily, and Loki caught himself speaking before he’d even considered if he wanted to defend or run from the topic. “I understand where you’re all coming from. Thor is only just starting to enjoy the backlash of our relationship, but my friends have been insisting it was gross since I was about thirteen years old.” He shrugged. “The thing is, I never cared. It’s hard to quantify what we have against what we’re supposed to have because we don’t match up to any of the other stuff, either. We have the same parents, we live in the same house, we grew up in the same town, but I can honestly say, aside from the odd few days at Christmas, I didn’t see him from year to year. I didn’t know him and I didn’t particularly love or care about him,” 

Thor made a low, pained noise from across the table and Loki waved a placating hand his way.

“Rather, I knew I had a brother, and I loved him in that way you love your Great Aunt Ida because she’s your family, she’s there, and that’s what you do. Only Thor was my family, but he _wasn’t_ there. The first time I ever really got to know him was when I was twelve and he came home, not just because it was the first summer he didn’t have Ancient Olympian Sports in Athens or a cruise with the Young Diplomats of Tomorrow, but because he genuinely wanted to come home to spend time with _me_. From then on we were inseparable every summer, and it sounds idyllic and wonderful--and it was, don’t get me wrong--but I’m only eighteen now. From my point of view it feels like I’ve only had _my_ Thor,” he blushed, unable to prevent himself at the term, “for a little over six years, and only roughly six weeks per year at that, AND,” he cast Thor a stern yet teasing look, “he ditched me for a girlfriend of his for a really, really long time there.”

Wanda made a sad noise, all signs of distaste gone from her face as she gazed sympathetically at them now. “But, why for so little time? Just a few days at Christmas and in the summertime, why?”

A surge of bitterness rose up in Loki and he smiled tightly. “Ah, I’m afraid that’s both our father’s great plan and a good bit my fault, all at once,” he stated matter of factly. “There were plans in place years before Thor was born, as there had been years before our father was born: the right schools, the right people, and all the right things, but very far away. I don’t know the ins and outs of it--” (though he had driven himself mad thinking on it for the past few months) “--but somewhere between our mother not wanting to send another child so far away and my own behaviour--once I was of an age to have noticeably bad behaviour, that is--they kept me close to home and Thor far from it. We weren’t close, so it never occurred to me to mind, but then, once we were, once it _did_ , it became a…somewhat easier way to keep me in line. Did I want to see Thor at Christmas or summer? Well then, I’d best leave the school computers alone, leave the teachers alone, stop hacking the governor’s office, et cetera. It made for a tedious and seemingly endless school year, but it meant that every year Thor would get home and we’d take off together, sleeping in the orchard, in our dinghy, in hammocks.” Thor twitched, and Loki forced himself to ignore it. “Anywhere we fell, really. They were wonderful summers, and we just got used to sleeping all curled up together like it was perfectly natural because, to us, it was.” He inclined a shoulder, graceful in his assumed certainty, carefully clamping down on the parts of him that still _yearned_ for that contact. “It still is.”    

Wanda smiled, seemingly touched, and Loki felt a pit form in his stomach. A victory won in the name of their false brotherhood, at least for him, was a very hollow victory indeed.

“I am sorry for how I reacted before. I did not understand. What you describe is somehow … _charming_ ,” her beautiful face pulled into a subdued expression, “but also very sad. I cannot imagine such a thing with Pietro. I know we are twins, but I think most siblings would be saddened to be kept apart so. It seems to me that if your mother could not bear to be parted from you, then she should have had you both attend the same school closer to home, that way you would always have been together.”

For a moment Loki felt rage war with despair that he and Thor would never actually know what such a life, closer in both distance and as standard siblings, could have been, might have changed them. Perhaps Thor and he would have squabbled incessantly and made dinners at the table each night an art in sibling rivalry. Or…

Loki swallowed.

What if he’d loved Thor more--even _more_ than this--only to still end up dashed upon the rocks of what once was his family, with somehow even more to lose? It didn’t bear thinking about.

He snorted. “Charming, hm?” He threw an ostentatious wink Thor’s way. “Let’s never correct her, brother, allow someone besides Mother to think us each as _good_ boys.”

“Uh, sorry Snow White, I think that vibe raced out of here about the same time you each confessed to grand theft auto, not to mention Goldilocks’ underage tattoo and your exquisitely faked ID.”

Loki raised an eyebrow at him. “Whilst nice to know you’re paying attention, Stark, that’s the second time you’ve recycled a nickname for me.” He smiled. “You’ll have to branch out from girl’s names at this rate.”

“How dare you,” Stark said, utterly poker-faced, “I would never and have never done such a thing as monotonous as repeating myself.”

Loki sighed, affecting a look of long-suffering resignation, wondering if he was in for an impromptu rendition of every odd nickname Tony had conjured for him over the past few months, when instead Tony grinned and knocked back a shot, a truly wicked smile spreading across his face. “Oh, now _there’s_ an idea,” he murmured, “a hackneyed, overplayed, stereotypically lame, possibly even _monotonous_ idea, but then, reinvention is, like, _totally_ my thing.”

“Would you like to share with the class what you’re going on about, Tony?” Rhodey said, patient after many years exposure to the admittedly brilliant young man’s wacky way of thinking and speaking as though everyone thought and felt as he did.

Tony, grinning, reached down to pull an unopened bottle of vodka from the icebox before refilling his cup and placing the bottle in the middle of the table. “ _Never Have I Ever_ ,” he intoned in a singsong cadence as Rhodey groaned and Natasha snorted, “dubbed Elvira here with the same nickname, twice.” Winking, he then immediately knocked back the shot.

“Ugh, Stark, tedious,” Loki murmured, inwardly wincing at the levels of honesty generally required for this _infants_ game which, of course, was why Thor was immediately in favour.

“This brings back memories, indeed. I have not played this game since long before I left for Midgard--let us each have a round of shots!” He started snatching up fresh paper cups from the cooler, unstacking them to place one before each person as there were a few grumbles, but no one, Loki noticed sourly, actually made to prevent Thor from pouring a generous portion into the bottom of each.

“Uhm,” Steve shifted in his chair, horribly awkward suddenly, “I know you’re going to tease the crap out of me for this but, I didn’t watch a lot of TV growing up, but, this is that ‘I’ve Never’ game, yeah?”

Tony tilted his head, an oddly tender look belying the dirty twist to his smile as he gazed at Steve. “Yes, Oh Captain, My Captain, basically you say ‘I’ve Never’ for something you did, then drink and, if anyone else has done that, then they drink too. For example…” He leaned in to whisper hotly into Steve’s ear, Loki just catching the words ‘ _in our shower this morning_ ’ as Tony’s eyes smouldered into those of his still-very-new boyfriend. 

“Oh, ok,” Steve said quietly and then, colouring somewhat as he held Tony’s eyes, he threw back his shot and Tony beamed at him in delight.

“Ok fine, if we’re doing this, we’re doing this, but no deliberate liver-busters, right? Any of you start with that ‘Never Have I Ever been to the shops, eaten a sandwich, gotten a haircut’ shit and I’m taking this nice bottle for myself and finding people with better life experiences,” Rhodey stated firmly. “Tony’s been so, Natasha, you’re up.”

The redhead pursed her lips thoughtfully for a moment before smiling roguishly. “Oh,” She murmured, “This _is_ going to be fun after all – ‘Never Have I Ever’ deliberately engineered a drinking game in the hopes of seducing at least one of the other players.”

And she threw back her shot.

As did Tony.

And Wanda.

And Thor.

And Sam.

And Loki.

“Well,” Natasha chuckled, coyly, “That was illuminating. Shall we continue?”

++

A good half hour later and Loki couldn’t remember why it might be a bad idea to play. His sides and face ached from laughing, Natasha and Sam, in particular, had a way of picking truly embarrassing experiences and then teasing the information out of everyone no matter how much they tried to evade her line of questioning.

Loki himself had only been able to think of the standard embarrassing fare, too afraid of asking anything he might not want to know about Thor but still ending up privy to it as Stark asked question after question entirely based on sexual proclivities. Some of them had been hilarious and intended to be so, but most of them, Loki was reasonably sure, meant to try and test Steve, to see what, if any, of his more shameless tastes might yet be to Steve’s liking.

It certainly wasn’t helping Loki stay calm.

Questions involving stamina – Thor drank.

Questions involving getting off on pleasing your partner – Thor drank.

Questions about finding partners unable to handle what you could give them – Thor drank…as did Loki, so at least that one was somewhat satisfying.

The one that had Loki trying to not actively writhe in his seat, repulsed again by the longing low in his belly but unable to drag himself away to find a random Wakandan to play with (because if he did, Thor might too, and it might be hard to distract Thor from his hook-up being stabbed in the _face_ )--was Stark’s, regarding showers again.

“Never have I thought about anyone while--ahem--showering that I’d be ashamed to admit to.” 

Loki steadied himself to take a _casual_ drink, only to find his eyes straying to Thor, his own gaze cast low, face flaming rapidly and then, in turn, Loki found Tony’s eyes on him. He watched as both Thor and Loki drank, never lifting his own cup.

When Natasha, whose ‘go’ it was next, raised a perfect brow at him, Tony responded slyly “Ah, but then I’m never ashamed of anything, am I?” And when Natasha moved on to question a laughing Wanda about her own ‘shower’ sessions when attracted to her brother’s then-girlfriend, Loki thought he'd be safe from that dark, watchful gaze, only to find Stark’s eyes still on him, on _them_ , for that and a good few questions after.

A headache began to build at Loki’s temples, not pain so much as tension, his defences raising brick by brick behind his eyes, jaw clenching reflexively each time he felt Tony’s stare or when someone asked something that required him to drink only to find Thor doing the same.

“Never have I ever,” Rhodey slurred, the first of them to begin to admit defeat, “been trapped or ambushed by a friend or loved one because of being a total and complete ass to them.”

Tony howled with laughter, drinking deeply, almost choking on his mirth. “Oh god, you crazy son of a bitch I’d almost forgotten that!”

Loki grinned, watching Thor, who made to take his own drink but stilled, noting Loki’s own stationary hands, abruptly rasping, “Oh, I suppose you think that mine didn’t count then?”

Loki startled, genuinely puzzled before chuckling. “Ah, no actually Thor, my trap was laid with pre-planned conviction and cunning, your ‘ambush’ was merely temper and revenge.”

Thor’s jaw hung briefly open before he burst into outraged laughter. “Oh, I think _not_ , dear brother, there is no way I, wait, how do we decide if someone drinks or not if you know they’ve done what’s in question?”

Natasha, having set herself up as Grand High Inquisitor by this point gestured demurely to the rest of the group. “Tell us,” she said, simply, “we’ll decide.”

Loki rolled his eyes, swiftly silenced as Tony went first.

“Oh, it was funny as hell, actually, he got me good.” He broke off, chuckling, rubbing his hands over his face to hold in his smile long enough to speak. “I kept trying to steal the girl he was making a play for when we were thirteen. We were both going to a party she was throwing and he gave me every chance to give him my word that I wouldn’t make a play for her. Naturally, being thirteen and even more of an asshole than I am now, I wouldn’t, so he engineered me overhearing him tell his mom he’d bought the girl’s favourite aftershave to wear to the party. I shot upstairs to steal it. Turned out it was liquid stink bomb or some shit. Took two days to wash off. I missed the party and never went poaching again. Y’know, much. Well, not off Rhodey anyway.”

Natasha nodded. “That definitely meets the criteria, yes. Loki?”

He curled his lip. “The ambush I executed, or the one Thor, _ah_ , ‘set’ for me?” He waggled his fingers for the air commas, and Sam winced, hissing, clearly on Thor’s side.

“Yours will do.” Loki smirked. “As I said earlier, Thor and I would only get to see each other for very brief periods so each time we were reunited, we were understandably excited. Thor would run to me, snatch me up and spin me around and--,” _kiss him all over his face, his eyes, his forehead, his cheeks--it had made him uncomfortable, happy but uncomfortable, and he had never really known why. In hindsight he knew brothers didn’t behave that way, not at that age, why had it taken so long to see that what they had was not what it should have been,_ “--and it just got to be super annoying. He was sixteen, I was fourteen, and I was still the same height I’d been at twelve, and Thor was already over six foot. He used to grab me, spin me around like a ragdoll, and when I asked him to stop he wouldn’t. As with Stark and Rhodey, I gave him every chance to mend his ways but the more I ran from his hugs, the more determined he was to give them.”

“Oh, Thor, you poor underloved golden retriever, you. I’d have been hugging you all this time if only I’d known your penchant for them! Mean, _MEAN_ \--but hot--little brother, anyway, go on…”

Rolling his eyes, Loki went on. “So, knowing that there was no chance of his not chasing me, I set it up that he _would_ chase me--right into my trap. I made it look, as he ran towards me, as though I had run straight ahead. It was a trick I’d learned with a mirror, having actually run to the side, but he pelted off down the hallway where I’d laid an oil slick, olive oil so not as noticeable, into which he skidded for a few feet as planned, toppled into the child’s paddling pool similarly full of oil and the impact released the cord on the blanket above, which released lots of white, fluffy feathers all over him.” Loki beamed at this, the memory still painfully funny even after all this time. “He looked like a naked, pissed off Donald Duck.”

There was a moment of perfect silence and then, “Please, _please_ tell me you have a picture?”

Loki pulled a face. “It was the summer I’d had my phone privileges revoked. No phone, no camera.”

Tony cursed but offered a hand to shake. “That was some seriously Wile E Coyote shit there, Lydia Deetz, nice work.”

Thor watched, his arms folded over his chest, somehow combining unimpressed and smug into a single smouldering look that had Loki’s breaths coming faster, despite his assumed air of supreme indifference. _He really, really needed to stop drinking now, before he gave himself away and ruined everything for good._

“Ok then, Thor, it is your go.” Wanda smiled, “Tell us your trap for Loki.”

“Well,” he intoned steadily, “It all started when I first got home from school for the holidays and my beloved younger brother tricked me into essentially tarring and feathering myself.”

Loki made a quick hiccough of a noise, swallowing his burst of laughter as swiftly as he could with something in Thor’s eyes promising retribution for a wrong long since redressed.

“He stood over me, laughing, obviously, and then he just said, smugly ‘ _nice feathers_ ’ and I decided then that I would get him back if it took me all year.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Seizing the moment is not a trap--mmph…” Tony and Loki each widened their eyes as Thor held his hand over Loki’s mouth, already talking again as though his fingers were not pressed tightly to Loki’s lips.

_Fuck, he needed to get a grip on himself._

“Anyway,” Thor continued, as though Loki and Tony were not both vibrating in their chairs, “I couldn’t think of anything that summer, but as the Christmas break approached Mother told me that Loki had spent the majority of his fall semester deliberately setting up an extremely pompous classmate to fail spectacularly at his own election event.”

“Sensing a theme in your mischief-making here, Loki,” Steve murmured as an aside, frowning as he noticed that Thor’s hand was still in place, so Loki took his chance to push it from his lips, the rough contact making them swell, seeking further contact.

“He deserved it. He was a horrific bully.”

Steve inclined his head, conceding. “Fair enough.” 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Thor reiterated, mock-glaring at the interruption, “I encouraged Mother and Father to attend a local function--“

“That’s premeditation,” Rhodey interposed.

“--so that I might be alone in the house with Loki.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot into his hairline.

“I waited for him to get fully dressed, all in his best--Mother would have likely shed a proud tear or two had she seen him--and then, just before he was due to go meet his friends and watch the downfall of this tiny, petty adversary, I called him into my room.” Thor paused, beaming again and Loki glowered, not having heard enough of the story to realise just how much planning Thor had put into it, damn him.

“And?” Tony prompted, practically salivating.

“I jumped out from behind the door, shouted BOO and threw him onto my bed.”

“ _Oh my god…_ ” Tony whispered, hoarse.

“And then I _sat_ on him.”

Tony blinked, and there was a beat of silence while everyone absorbed both Thor’s happy smile, Loki’s glower and then Wanda spoke. “You just…sat on him?”

Thor chuckled, revelling in the memory as Loki had with his own “It was hilarious. I sat in the direct centre of his back and even when his friends pulled up outside and beeped for him he couldn’t move me. I held him there, just flat on my bed and unable to move no matter what he tried and I just simply waited. I knew the trick, whatever it was, was supposed to be in the early part of the event, so I sat on him for a little over an hour and a half. Long enough to have ruined his fun anyway.”

Silence.

And then.

They all _roared_ with laughter.

All bar Loki.

“Oh man, he kept you down with just his ass, that’s classic!”

Steve was a steady, rosy pink from his rolling giggles. “I just keep imagining you raging, all muffled, against the bedclothes, all furious and flailing and not getting anywhere!”

Natasha wiped an imaginary streak from her still brimming but otherwise perfectly made up eyes.

“Right, yes, sorry, Loki, Rhodey was right. Premeditation and tricking you into walking into his room so he could jump you? You’ve got to drink. Down it.”

Loki rolled his head on his shoulders, rolling his eyes and flipping the bird at Thor before lifting his cup. “Fine,” he muttered petulantly into the lip as he drank it down. “You were just lucky I hadn’t had my growth spurt yet.”

The others were still giggling as they poured more shots into their cups, but Thor stilled, head faintly tilted as though he’d caught Loki’s mutter on the wind. “What was that?” he ground out, incredulous.

“Nothing.” Loki shrugged and Thor sat forward, something lighting in his face that made Loki want to grind his heels down and refuse anything Thor was about to demand of him.

“No, I distinctly heard you. You said something about I was _lucky_ you’d not had your growth spurt at that time?”

Steve whistled low, and Sam hid his smiling face in his hands. “Oh man, here we go,” he muttered.

Loki tilted his chin defiantly. “Well, yes, brother. That’s what I said. After all, there was more than a foot between us at the time. You were literally on the verge of adulthood whilst I was a fraction of your strength at that age.”

Thor blinked, laughing breathlessly as he almost recoiled, honestly dumbfounded that Loki would oppose him in this, it seemed. “I’m sorry, so, you’re saying, that ok yes, it was a trap, but it only worked because you were smaller than me then, whereas now we’re almost of a height?”

Loki considered this and nodded, trembling with no real idea why beyond the thrill of adrenaline beneath his skin. “Basically, yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

The rest of the table sat in silence, attention flicking back and forth like an audience at a tennis match, Tony actively silencing himself with his own hands over his lips, apparently determined to not disturb the standoff.

Thor shook his head slightly, eyes never leaving Loki for a second. “You’re really going to make me do it?” he murmured and Loki’s stomach muscles clenched, low and quivering as he shrugged, offhandedly. 

“You may, of course, do as you like, Thor. You don’t need my permission to, wait, what are you doing?!” Thor had risen from his plastic chair and was moving around the table towards him, so Loki sprang to his feet and skittered backwards, hands held out before him, warding off an as yet unknown attack. “What are you doing, Thor?”

Thor abruptly closed the gap between them, surging forward as the others gasped, his right hand loosely clasped about the front of Loki’s throat, using it to steer him backwards, Loki only just catching himself at the edge of the pool, arms wind-milling for a second before he regained his balance.

Thor released him, his smile rich with amusement even as something predatory glittered in his eyes, not quite a foot between them as Thor moved to stand immediately before him, toe to toe as Loki drew one panicked breath after another, laughing feebly to chase the feeling of being _hunted_ from his veins.

“Th… _Thor_?” he gasped, and Thor all but purred with satisfaction.

“Oh, it’s nothing I would worry yourself about, Loki. After all, you’ve had your growth spurt and then some nowadays, what possible threat could I be to you?” He reached behind Loki to fist a hand into the back of his jeans, gripping tight, his knuckles brushing the base of Loki’s spine as Thor pulled him resolutely backwards, towards the pool.

“Thor, no. No, please-- _there’s vomit in the pool, Thor_!”

Blue eyes twinkled directly before his. “I am aware.”

And Thor stepped ever so slightly forward.

For a moment, Loki panicked, feeling the dual forces between Thor’s body and Thor’s arm both pulling and pushing him towards the water. He tried to throw himself forward, scrabbling at Thor’s arms and shoulders, unable to fight too hard partly because of the vice-like hold about his waist, and partly because if he struggled too much, he’d topple them both into the water.

_That was it._

Loki lunged upward as much as he could, curling one arm under and around the arm currently pulling at him, winding his other firmly about Thor’s shoulders, teeth bared, savage with triumph. “There now, _darling brother,_ if I go in, we both go in!”

Thor inclined his head, smiling softly as several golden strands escaped the impromptu ponytail he’d pulled it into for ‘Flip Cup’ an hour or so before. “Fair enough,” he said smoothly, _smugly,_ and edged closer again, taking them literally chest to chest, touching all the way down their bodies as Loki snarled, defensive and embarrassed _and much, much more turned on than he could let himself think about at the moment._

He wound his arms tighter about Thor and pushed against his body as hard as he dared.

“ _Thor_ ,” he growled, long and low enough to apparently kill Stark, whose head collapsed to the table with a whimper, whilst Loki coaxed and pleaded with his eyes as best he could with his teeth set in a ferocious slash across his face, “I can’t go in there. I hate sick, you _know_ I hate sick.”

Nodding carefully, Thor smiled back at him, edging from cocky into dangerously smug. “I know.”

Loki whined despite himself, pushing a little (and writhing a little, if he was honest with himself, unable to resist the hot, tight twist of the simmering shards of _want_ in his belly) against the immovable strength of Thor’s form, “Thor, _c’moooon…”_

A tall, loose-limbed stranger was suddenly by the poolside. “Whoa, is this bad touch shit--cos no means no, dude, or,” the newcomer tilted their head to one side, “should I be selling tickets to this?”

“Tickets, definitely tickets,” Tony muttered against the tabletop, lifting his head as Steve brightened.

“Hey, Buck! Come sit down and meet the fellas properly. Oh, sorry Nat, sorry Wanda.”

The newcomer, Bucky, Loki remembered from when they’d arrived, busy then with HRH T’Challa, moved to perch on the arm of Steve’s chair, ruffling his hair with a practised hand and ignoring his spluttered protests. Loki’s fingers were beginning to shake too hard with adrenaline and rage ( _not_ arousal, dammit) to maintain their grip in Thor’s jacket.

“So, what are we watching here--gay chicken? Initiation ritual? Initiation ritual involving gay chicken?”

“Dick measuring contest,” Natasha added and Tony stifled a snort in his palms.

“Apparently Loki hates vomit, so Thor’s gonna chuck him in the pool,” Steve muttered, attempting to restyle his hair into its admittedly somewhat old fashioned side parting.

“Hm.” Bucky frowned. “Does he deserve it?”

“ _No_ ,” Loki spat, narrowing his eyes in his best chilling glare, the one that stopped the bullies at his old school from coming within fifty paces and Thor, _damn him_ , laughed.

“Oh really? _”_  He ground out past his mirth and shifted his leg between Loki’s, further undermining his fragile position at the lip of the tiles. “You’re blameless in this, are you? Nothing to say that, for example, could end all of this, here and now?”

Loki swallowed, no longer sure why he cared so much. _Yes,_ he was revolted by vomit, he always had been, but it had been at the other end of the pool. Who knew if it was even near their end by now and perhaps he was overreacting in the first place, and _he couldn’t think straight with Thor’s thigh pressed between his, dammit._

“Well?” Thor all but purred, seemingly apropos of nothing, and Loki had to turn his head to wet his lips, mouth dry from where he was panting openly now, frantic.

“Well, wh-what?” Loki stammered, trying to coil a leg around Thor’s without taking his feet from where they were steadily being inched over the edge, and he groaned, twisting to hide his face in Thor’s shoulder. “What do you want dammit?”

“I, uh, I believe it had something to do with that whole growth spurt thing, dude?” Rhodey called out helpfully, and Loki hissed in frustration (the good, _normal_ kind, not the desperate new kind clawing at every inch where Thor was touching him.) 

“Oh god, that’s what this is?” He seethed. “This is really beneath you, Thor.”

“No, Loki,” Thor murmured, edging forward enough that he was teetering as well, his free arm angled backwards and behind them to keep his balance, “I think you’ll find that was _you_.”

Stiffening, Loki’s eyes flew to Thor’s, searching the steady blue gaze for any hint of the undertone that felt as though it was screaming directly into Loki’s eardrums. He saw only the same bull-headed conviction he saw when Thor thought there was time enough yet for another coffee before they had to leave for the station to make his train on Sunday mornings, the same Thor who held him close in bed and promised to love his brother _no matter what_ , but, _there_ , for just a moment, he thought he saw a Thor who looked directly at Loki’s mouth and swallowed, hard.

For the span of a single, painful beat of the heart apparently trying to escape his chest, Loki almost made the wild, _thoughtless_ choice to cross the tiny space left between them. He _actually considered_ crushing his mouth to his brothers to be a viable, understandable option, but--as his lashes lowered and lifted in the same instance where he almost threw his most precious relationship to the dirt--he caught Stark’s eye.

Appreciation and amusement both were evident in Tony’s expression, mid-smirk as Loki glanced his way and, had he not recently learned his lesson when it came to underestimating the future leader of a billion-dollar company, he might have missed the underlying emotion that Loki suspected was intended just for him.

_Pity_.

Loki’s hackles rose and he let them, his horror at being so _visible_ in his pain and confusion to anyone, no matter how well-intentioned the friend, expressing itself to Thor and the others in an almost roar of exasperation. “ _Oh for_ … ALRIGHT, I YIELD!”

Instantly Thor’s smile lost it’s sharp, predatory slant, softening into triumph mixed with genuine pleasure even as he shook his head in fake regret. “Meaning…?” he prompted, drawing the word out as Wanda booed him, muttering about poor sportsmanship and Loki, sighing, let himself go as limp as he dared, pressing his forehead to Thor’s to say, in clear, unimpressed tones, “I was mistaken, Thor. I couldn’t beat you then and I can’t beat you now. My growth spurt had nothing to do with anything, it was all you and your big, burly, impressive, manly strength, alright?”

Thor blinked for a second before chuckling roughly. “There, was that so hard?” he rumbled.

“I know _I_ am,” Tony said plaintively from the table and was resoundingly smacked by nearly everyone in arms reach, Steve included, the exception being Steve’s admitted best friend, Bucky, reaching out to fist-bump Stark ( _you do you, bro,_ ) and swigging from his beer, much to Tony’s delight.

Loki clung tightly, despite his own huff of reluctant laughter, still perilously close to falling and too wobbly to release his hold even if Thor hadn’t been all but holding him above the water. “Will that do, then?” Loki pressed harder, hinting for their retreat but Thor remained as he was, looking into his face a second longer.

“It will suffice,” Thor intoned solemnly before breaking into a wide grin and stepping back. He hauled Loki the scant distance left between them to speak softly, seriously, almost against the whorl of Loki’s ear. Loki only just heard him past his own choked-off inhalation of surprise as their bodies were crushed together to the point of nervousness over his swiftly stirring interest. “Truthfully, I can’t believe you fell for it, brother. You cannot truly have believed that I would _ever_ let you fall?”

Thor turned his head, their noses brushing, and Loki had only wits enough left to wonder what Stark made of their current position before his brain went into free-fall. Thor’s free arm moved to close about him also and, gazing down into Loki’s eyes, Thor smiled. As he held him, Loki knew that there was nothing left, nothing further life could do to hurt him, even after stripping away his family with a sodding ice-cube, nothing more painful and exquisite than the love he felt for Thor, which he could never show or express in any way.

“Why, brother,” he purred, lifting a shaking palm to cup Thor’s face, hoping the brightness of his smile would distract from the tears he felt pricking at his eyes, “such _sentiment_.”

And with a vicious twist of his hips that carried up through his torso and a leg neatly twined about Thor’s, Loki flung them both into the pool.

Thor, at first clenching Loki tight-- _true to his word to never let him fall, damn his beautiful, trusting blue eyes--_ only released him as they hit the water. Loki was ready, twisting to push himself along the bottom with one sinuous stroke through the mercifully clean water, soaring up at the far side, already climbing the ladder as Thor surfaced, spluttering.

He looked about him, seeing Loki laughing to cover both his own hideous sense of loss (and the genuine feeling of queasiness that came from even the slight chance of someone else’s vomit in his hair) already moving from the poolside to the sprinklers. Thor absolutely _roared_ with mirth and horror mixed together as their friends at the table gaped in silent shock.

“Loki, you absolute _BASTARD_! I _love_ these boots, dammit, how could you?”

Loki cringed, grinning, as he shrugged beneath the thankfully cool and clear droplets pouring over him. It was true, Thor had been overly attached to that particular pair of Timberlands since he was seventeen and wore the admittedly well-worn things everywhere.

_Ah well,_ Loki decided with an inward, guilty wince, _he needed new ones anyway._

Watching as Thor struck out for the same ladder he’d used, Loki waited till he’d hauled himself up and was advancing on him to pout prettily, giving Thor the very ‘ _puppy-eyes_ ’ Barton had mocked earlier, clasping his hands before him as Thor reached his side.  “But surely not more than you love _me,_ brother?” he murmured, batting his lashes in an admittedly ridiculous manner and Thor leaned close, growling past his smile.

“Enough to fling you back into that pool, you silver-tongued bane of my life.”

Loki nodded, his expression a study in both understanding and ill-concealed mischief. “If you feel you must, Thor. I, of course, may feel a decided need to seek out some olive oil and a few feathers. This seems like a fairly luxurious place to stay, does it not? I’ll wager they have a few extra goose-feather pillows they could spare me.”

“Oh for… _truce_ , I implore you.” Thor laughed, drawing Loki back beneath the gentle fall of the sprinkler spray to hug him and then releasing him on a continued ripple of involuntary laughter. A heavy hand cupped Loki’s nape to shake him gently. “You really are the _worst,_ brother.”

“You _love_ it.” The words burst free of Loki’s lips past the sharp slash of what should have been a vicious and victorious smile, the undercurrent of warmth blunting his haughty tone till there was nothing left but affection in the taunted words. Thor shook his head and sighed. “Gods help me, I do…” It was said with such easy resignation that Loki’s heart twisted in his chest, abruptly convinced that maybe they could still survive whatever was to come, after all.

Stepping back from the spray--before he could do something stupid like throwing himself back into Thor’s arms--Loki noticed, with a prickle of irritation, that it had not gone unnoticed by a great many from around the garden that Thor now stood, wet-through and gleaming in the early evening light.

“It appears my impromptu dunking of your esteemed person has not gone undetected, brother mine.” Loki sighed, cursing himself for the overly formal tone, a practice of their father’s that reeked of disapproval. “I think you can probably have your pick of the bunch at this point.” He smiled tightly as Thor stepped to his side, ruefully stomping his boots and listening to the squishing noise with an unhappy expression before his eyes darted about the faces of the appreciative crowd, his own smile oddly muted in the face of such blatant admiration.

“It seems to me that you’ve gathered quite the crowd of happy onlookers yourself, Loki.” He blinked, water droplets still clinging to a few of Thor’s dark lashes as he grinned. “How about we find somewhere to dry my bloody boots out then we see which one of us has benefited most from Mother’s teachings over at the Shots Chessboard?”

Loki looked back at Thor, expressionless for a moment as he _burned_ with love. He felt torn in a million differently horrifying directions, one part of him exultant at being chosen to spend time as a beloved brother, another glowing with spite and pride that he was more valuable to Thor as friend and brother both. He was more valuable than the hated, desperate _sluts_ who were even now wanting what they couldn’t have, as another part of him seethed with self-loathing for relating so hard to said sluts, hating them yet more for being allowed to want him, allowed to _have_ him, should Thor wish it.

So he smiled, and let himself have the little crime of knocking their shoulders together just for the thrill of touch alone, and said. “Excellent plan, brother. Lead the way.”

And so, stopping only long enough to inform the others of the epic battle about to commence (and set off a slew of bets placed upon them), Loki let Thor steer him back into the main throng of the party. For the first time in nearly two years, he felt entirely confident that Thor would remain by his side, no matter what, and, drunk and lovelorn though he was, he was _happy._

++

Two incredibly flattering chess matches against Thor later and a single, swiftly galling one against Steve (who knew that home-schooling taught such _strategy_ ) Loki was slotted in at the end of a generously-built sofa next to Thor. 

Steve’s friend, Bucky, and the apparent object of his affections, an intimidatingly brilliant girl by the name of Okoye, took up the other end of the sofa, all of them talking and laughing quietly with the other partygoers crowded onto the other sofas dotted about the room. Everyone took a drink each time one of the _Justice League_ on the giant screen ended up wearing the crudely-made bunny ears stuck to the TV and, despite the rolling, hot tide of desire that ebbed and crashed against his ribs with each tiny shift of Thor along his side, Loki felt almost _content._

His head swam, lazily listing on his neck until he found himself tilted against Thor’s shoulder, struggling to keep his eyelids up as he caught himself nuzzling into the warmth that seemed to perpetually radiate from his brother’s skin. He tried to struggle back upright, but his limbs felt as though they were drenched in heavy, thick mud, sinking him towards the blackness, with only Thor’s arm to keep him from falling.

“Thor,” he whispered, annoyed by Wanda giggling somewhere nearby, “Thor, I think, I think'm really drunk.”

A large, long-fingered hand stroked over his hair, steadying him as the arm beneath him shifted and lifted to curl about him, tucking his face onto his shoulder. “I think so too, brother. It’s alright though. Sleep it off a little now, and I’ll wake you in a while for some water, ok?”

Loki tried to curl up, frowning fitfully when the best he could achieve was to push his legs crooked over and across something warm and firm, holding on with both fists to the Thor-warmed fabric before his face. “Ok...” he whispered back and, after a while, the voices were nothing more than noise, and he let his swimming head rest upon the stone-like strength of his brother’s shoulder, and slept.

 ++

He woke, here and there, Thor encouraging him to sit up, still drowsy and cross, unable to speak, just pliant and desperate to return to sleep, taking the pills and drinking the water that Thor pressed into his hands. He drank another glass at Thor’s gentle request and let himself be guided back into lying down, stretched out upon the sofa that was ‘theirs’ for the night, apparently. He snuggled into it with a sigh, aware of Bruce already snoring like a great beast on the couch across from him and wondered if his Betty might have already gone deaf.

The next time he awoke, he was himself. Incredibly drunk, but himself.

He lay for a moment, pondering whether or not he actually felt sick or if it had been merely the speed with which he’d turned his head (or eyes) upon waking.  The room was full of sleeping party guests, people curled into armchairs, onto bean bags, stretched out on rugs with pillows beneath their heads, and scattered all across the large room’s many sofas.

He had his back to the sofa cushions. Thor faced inwards with their legs tangled together to hold him in place. The sofa was not really built to support two six-foot-plus men, and was doing its best to smother them with cushions.

Loki adjusted the cushion beneath his head, giving Thor more than he’d had, knowing full well he’d sleep like a log against the hard planes of Thor’s chest anyway. He nuzzled closer, realising something as sobriety peeked its head through the mists for just long enough to understand why it mattered that they were pressed as close as they were.

Thor was _hard_.

Loki felt as though he should either be extremely bothered or extremely aroused, but instead was just drunk enough to be happy with his lot in life and just sober enough to know there was nothing to be done bar enjoy the sudden thrill of forbidden contact. He lacked the energy to do anything more than press himself against the hard, hot ridge once again, just to hear Thor hum low in his throat as he pulled Loki closer without coming close to waking up.

Drifting slowly on a cloud of indolent pleasure, Loki sluggishly shuffled through his favourite memories, displacing a few lesser precious gems down the list to allow for a new addition. He drifted back into sleep, smiling, with the press of Thor’s body against his, the image of Thor’s luminous eyes before his, and the sound of Thor’s voice promising that he would _never_ let Loki fall.

 


	10. Part Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki tries (& fails) to stay away from Thor, they all face each other in Kombat and Clint is sticky beaked as well as hawk-eyed.

**Part 10:**

The following week was a study in bliss and soul-shredding despair, each feeling ripping through Loki with almost no advance warning.

He’d been idly reading on the train home when a bolt of almost orgasmic gladness had soared through his every cell, and he’d caught himself beaming out of the window as genuine joy bubbled up in him, the weekend's memories rolling past his mind’s eye in glorious, giddying technicolour.

He’d basked in the memory of Thor laughing as he’d surfaced in the pool, in the recollection of his spirited defence of their relationship, and the warm, cushioned feeling of Thor’s support and admiration had carried him all the way back to Asgard. Loki’s fingers had repeatedly drifted upwards, lifted to his lips in an attempt to smudge the lovesick, _sappy_ smile that he knew was perpetually lurking there.

He almost made it all the way to dinner, grinning at his mother’s transparent comments on the likely trouble they had caused. He showered with slow, lingering hands as he refused to lower himself to masturbate over the sensation of Thor’s jean-clad erection pressed tightly to him, but not questioning too deeply the sense memory of vodka scented breath against Loki’s face as he’d squeezed forward, whining, into Thor’s confining poolside embrace. 

He was laughing softly, shaking against the tiles as he came down from the delicious jolt of his orgasm--reliving the sensation of toppling them both back into the water, Thor’s eyes wide with shock--when _shame_ , thick and acidic, like bile, rose through him from his toe-tips up to his eyes, startled a gasp out of him.

Thor _loved_ him. He trusted him, dammit. He’d defended their relationship with the sort of sweetness that came from total obliviousness to the kind of twisted thoughts that coursed through Loki and Loki _alone_ It was the equivalent of having a bucket of ice water dashed over him and his sense of satiation dissipated so quickly that he staggered, leaning heavily against the wall until he felt strong enough to lurch out of his bathroom to sit, dripping and miserable, on the bed.

He sat, breathing shallowly, fists clenching and unclenching, as he envisaged tearing the room apart, silently screaming, knowing that the nice dinner planned in ten minutes required a smooth, untroubled brow, not the shrieking, unhinged deviant he felt like on the inside.

Loki sat, eyes closed, and focused on the water drying on his skin and the whistle of his breath as it slowed to something less than frantic, waiting until he knew he could dress and smooth his outward appearance until it was armour enough to face his father’s sometimes all-knowing gaze.

He survived dinner, his mask intact, and then breakfast the next day, and so on and so forth until he had to go let off some steam or rip down his childhood home brick by brick. He texted Thor with possible summer plans and clutched the fervent replies close to his heart as he snuck out each night, needing someone, _anyone_ to touch him until his subconscious stopped screaming at him.

He promised himself he’d stay Asgard-bound that weekend, regretfully informing Thor of it by midweek. This wasn’t just because telling him meant having to deal with Thor’s ‘sadface’ text responses but also because the part of his own mind that really _hated him_ was apparently more than happy to summon Thor to mind at just the point where he was either closing on climax or easing himself to his knees. It informed him with poisoned voice and vision alike that Thor was likely doing the same about now, getting off in the arms of a perfect stranger, getting _them_ off in turn and it didn’t matter whether they were male or female because what they _never_ were, was Loki.

Enraged, Loki drank more and even stooped to accepting a few substances from his ‘Not That Dangerous but Still Idiotic’ list, furious with himself the next day for allowing his emotions to get in the way of what was usually one of greatest strengths--his sense of self-preservation. 

He threw himself into his planned Friday night debaucheries with more vigour than enthusiasm, all but forcing himself to accept anyone bold enough to approach him for a dance. He skipped straight past the dance for those who seemed to be as no-nonsense about what they wanted from the night as he, his skin tight from the repeated washings of his hands, the taste of latex still burned onto his tongue no matter how many drinks he used to chase his _conquests_ down.

His sex drive should have been humming, content and all but comatose at the back of his mind but, as he let himself back into his room at just gone 2 a.m., he found himself sneaking downstairs to steal _cookies and milk_ , of all the insipid things, from the kitchen, comfort food from his childhood. Later, as the sun rose over his sleepless form, huddled miserable and exhausted from his weekly efforts to exorcise the demons from his flesh, he admitted defeat.

He couldn’t go on like this. He was already unhappy, living day to day with his parents' fragile spun-sugar world of lies continuing all around him, with or without his participation. _Yes,_ he knew he could make it oh so _very_ much worse if he soured the sweetness that was Thor’s love for him but staying away from him was just not working for Loki.

He knew himself, knew he was more a danger to his own happiness (and that of everyone around him) if he was hemmed continuously in, cornered by his own sense of misery as well as that of the impending, _worse_ unhappiness to come. For all that Thor was dangerous, Loki had never yet exceeded his restraint, merely considered it, and that was just going to have to be good enough.

Having decided, Loki was finally, if fitfully, able to sleep. He rose in time for a late lunch with his mother and passed off his slight sharpness as irritation with a night ill-spent, bored without good company. While none of that was precisely untrue, Loki felt a slight flush rise in his cheeks as his mother took this, correctly, to signify that he would be setting out for Midgard just as soon as he could pack.

In actuality, he had already packed and, having stacked the dishes in the washer and pecked his mother on the cheek, loving her still despite both her insight and deceit, he snagged his bag from the hallway and was on the train for Midgard before it even occurred to him to tell Thor that he was coming.

Loki’s mind helpfully waltzed images of a Bruce-less den of debauchery past his inner eye. Thor had taken so many hot young things home with him that he had still yet to satisfy all their appetites, and Loki would likely be walking into a still-ongoing orgy. Or, and somehow _worse,_ Thor wouldn’t be there at all, having left the club with the new object of his affection, and, having spent all night entwined with them, would still be there, for months or possibly years yet to come, wholly besotted as he always was when in love and utterly _gone_ from Loki’s side.

Shoving his phone deep to the bottom of his bag, fingers shaking, Loki decided to wait and see what fate had in store for him, not knowing quite what he’d do--already en route and bursting to be by Thor’s side no matter what--were Thor to now refuse him.

It seemed though, several hours later, as he once again pushed his key into the lock only seconds after a  single perfunctory knock, that low expectations had rewarded him once again as the door jerked inwards, taking him with it, fingers still clutching at his key, as he collided, face first, into Thor. 

“ _LOKI!”_ he roared, delighted, catching Loki in the sort of clasp that had been his downfall summer after summer, even going so far as to press two ecstatic, smacking kisses to Loki’s cheeks. He then picked him up and swung him around without bothering to pull him all the way into the room, so Loki’s feet whacked almost instantly into the doorframe.

“ _OW,_ put me _down,_ you great bloody oaf…” Thor squeezed Loki apologetically, and with just as much force as when he’d slammed him into the doorway, before setting him on his feet before cupping his face and seizing his shoulders all in the same, frenzied move that had Loki, already dizzy from his unexpected pirouette, reeling as he staggered in Thor’s grasp. “Oh my--for _god’s_ sake, Thor--must I fetch another batch of oil and feathers to douse you in before you _DESIST_?”

“Why did you not say you were coming, after all? I thought you had to stay in Asgard this weekend?”

Loki averted his gaze, shrugging as he smiled contritely at the rest of the room, letting his gaze glance over the gathered company of Bruce, Clint and Tony, all watching with a sort of fond resignation as the largest of their number reduced himself to something more akin to a two-year-old with a new toy.

“I wasn’t supposed to be. Only decided it this morning. Asgard was just…” He broke off, unable to quite explain the urge to laugh, breathless with nerves as Thor’s thumbs rubbed circles on his clavicle. “…I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

_Please no hot dates, please no hook-ups, please no somehow already committed relationship…_

Bruce sat up and leaned over the back of an armchair to loosely clasp his palms together, his already large eyes opened wide and beseeching as he implored Loki. “Please, dude, be on your brother’s team in my place? I’m much happier watching anyway, but also, I’m like, _terrible_ at this and Tony’s been kicking our asses for the past hour and it’s starting to really piss me off, y’know?”

Loki lifted a brow at where a new console had been added to the collection by the large flat screen, ignoring Tony’s cocky look to sneer at his brother from close quarters.

“Seriously, you watch me boost Father’s precious Mercedes _once_ and I can’t shake you from my tail, but you’re letting Stark kick your arse on _Mario Kart_? Honestly, I’m ashamed of you.”

“Just call me _Hot Rod_ ,” Tony beamed. “Oh, actually, that should totally be my porn name if I ever do porn--don’t tell Steve. I’m not going to do porn Bruciebear, don’t give me that face. Huh, actually I bet someone’s already used that.” His thumbs seemed to twitch against the screen of his phone, “Yup, it’s in use, and _how_ by the way, so yeah, where was I? Oh, that’s right, you guys all suck and me and Mario rule all.”

Bruce took a long, slow breath through his nose, eyes flickering shut for a moment before he reopened them to fix Loki with a determined stare. “So, you’ll stay and help us take him down, right?”

Loki kicked the door closed behind him and smiled.        

“Gentlemen, it would be my pleasure.”

++

Loki blinked, genuinely dumbfounded as he found himself roundly defeated, yet again.

“This usually works…”

“Well, performance issues, it's not uncommon. _”_

Giving Stark the finger with an ease that would have been entirely foreign to him only a month before, Loki gave Thor a baleful look. “ _Seriously_ , you outran the police, came third despite joining the race after it started, despite not setting out until well after I left, and still, _still_ you cannot take Stark on this infernal game?”

“Well, what would be your excuse then, brother? You, who won said street race _and_ who managed to snag Bowser when I am but the fair Princess Peach?”

“Dude, don’t rag on Peach, she’s hot, and you should totally cosplay as her for Halloween, cos that would be legitimately hilarious but also,” Tony preened, affecting the classic _Superman_ pose, “you need to learn that there is just no beating Metal Mario or me! We’re a match made in Nintendo Heaven.”

Loki leaned back, his shoulder blades against Thor’s knees where he sat in one of the two armchairs, Loki cross-legged on the floor at his feet. He crossed his arms over his chest as he surveyed the amassed consoles and games unceremoniously assembled on the shelves beneath the TV, trying to withhold his smile as his gaze settled on a familiar title.

“So, you readily admit that it isn’t your skill in gaming per se that is in question, just that you’re unbeatable in this one childish game?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh no, he called Mario childish, I may never recover. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, _Drusilla_ , I’m the best at this, and you’ll never beat me.”

Bruce let loose a startlingly savage growl from the depths of his own chair, hidden behind his _Access to Human Biology_ textbook and Clint reached over from his perch on the arm to pat soothingly at the top of Bruce’s head as Loki smirked.

“Don’t let the braggart get you down, Banner, if it helps, I no longer care if he can beat me at his chosen game. I know, after all, that he cannot beat me at mine.”

Thor chuckled and Clint sucked in a whistle through his teeth, cutting his eyes to where Tony bristled, sighing and tossing his head like an offended thoroughbred.

“Oh… so _that’s…_ you think? Seriously? Do you think that’s going to work? You think I’ll try whichever dumb game you think is best because you say I can’t beat you?”

“Not you, nor anyone else here, or the takeout’s on me tonight.”

Tony crossed his arms, mirroring Loki as he sneered, somehow brittle without Steve present to boost his usually boundless supply of confidence. “I think I’ll pass, thanks. Better to stop at _Champion_ than progress to _Loser_ , after all.”

Loki nodded. “But of course. I would never press you to take such a serious blow to your pride, my friend. Best to live in glories past.”

“In other words,” Clint chimed in, grinning, “ _Bak-bak-BAAAK…_ ”

Stark’s nostrils flared so much that Loki had to avert his gaze or give himself away, laughing, as the young billionaire reached over to dramatically thrust his palm before Loki’s face, snarling, “Oh it is _so_ on, _Lisbeth,_ not just me though. You beat us all or you buy dinner, right? I got that bit right, right?”

Smiling broadly, Loki made no attempt to hide his enthusiasm as he reached up to shake Tony’s hand.

“Right.” He agreed.

++

It was decided that Bruce would go first against Loki, after Tony swiftly realised that he not only had zero experience with _Mortal Kombat_ but that, with a wealth of choice of men with seemingly fabulous abs as well as fighting skills, it might take him some time to find his best fit.

Bruce chose _Goro_ , hoping that his added size and strength might help him, but found himself swiftly defeated. Loki might have enjoyed it more had Bruce not then given him the thumbs up, en route to the kitchen to chop more limes for their Coronas, suggesting perhaps that he was more motivated in bringing about Tony’s downfall than being as woefully useless at the game as Bruce had previously insisted.

Tony made a great show of scrolling through the characters, torn between Kenshi and Shang Tsung as Loki affected a yawn and leaned back, arms crossed behind his head against Thor’s knees. “Sometime today would be appreciated, Stark. Your avatar does not need to be your perfect duplicate, after all.”

“Well, of course, you’d say that. You’ve only got Frosty the Blue Man there because the only characters who have your hairdo are girls.”

Loki smirked, even as Thor sat forward, bristling protectively, “Any of whom would still kick the overstyled arse of any character you pick, and my ‘hairdo’ as you put it, was initially in honour of my brother here, so you might want to watch where you cast your misogynistic aspersions.” 

He lowered his arms to rest them loosely on his knees, smug as Thor leaned over to brace his own elbows on his knees as well, a cocky brow lifted Tony’s way. “Am I to understand that you find us to be _unmanly_ , my friend? For I need no gaming system to correct such a notion.”

In the kitchen there came a wet _thwack_ as Bruce’s lime juice dampened hand met his face and Loki couldn’t entirely suppress his own wince, despite the weight of Stark’s eyes on him.

“Oh, I’m more than assured of your _manhood_ , babycakes. Your measurements are written on my brain for all time after all. Triple B: _big_ , blond and beautiful.”

“You _had_ to ask,” Loki muttered, casting Thor a rueful look over his shoulder and Thor rolled his eyes in turn, shifting forward and lifting a hand to run it over Loki’s own sleek locks.

“He’s just jealous, for all his compliments,” Thor rumbled into his ear, too close for comfort as his fingers wrought fine tremors through Loki’s frame where they lingered at the curve of his skull. “I only kept my hair long once you grew yours out to match because it reminded me of home, of us.” Thor tugged on an errant strand, using it to turn Loki’s face to his, and smiled. “It still suits you well, brother.”

“See, this shit--with the whispering in his ear, the ‘ _oh Loki, come sleep with me in my bed in a giant puppy pile while we braid each other’s GLORIOUS hair’--_ THAT shit is why Stark’s watching you two like you’re his idea of pay-per-view.”

“Clint, _why_?” Bruce said in the sort of tone that should be reserved for deliberately stepping on kittens, shaking his head and sitting down heavily, passing everyone bar Clint a beer as Tony crowed with triumph.

“ _YES!_ I knew I wasn’t the only one seeing it. Oh my god, is this like a vote thing? If I get enough people to see or agree to the pay-per-view vibe, will you guys try the twin porn bros thing?”

Both Bruce and Clint cuffed him in unison.

There was a moment of silence and then, sighing and liberating Tony’s beer from him as he rubbed the spot where they’d each hit him, Clint shrugged sheepishly. “Look, I’m sorry, ok? I’m not saying I agree with Tony-- _no one_ should ever agree with Tony--but you’ve got to know it’s funny looking, right? No matter how sweetly you tell the story of how you barely ever got to see each other, that just makes the sleeping together shit weirder, man. I mean, is morning wood just not a thing for you weird rich guys or something?”

Tony raised a finger, presumably to mention his own weird rich guy experiences but before he could get a single, likely lewd, syllable out, Thor laughed and said, “Am I the only person who showers the night before?”

Clint raised an eyebrow. “Well, no obviously. I mean, you mean you _shower_ , right?”

Thor grinned more, swigging beer past his lime segment, “Well, I shower, but I also _shower_ yes, and it’s never been a problem.”

Heat raced to the pit of Loki’s belly and…elsewhere. 

He’d suspected previously that Thor was enjoying more than just the water pressure in the bathroom when he’d stayed over purely because he always seemed just a little too… _full…_ down there as he crushed Loki close to him at night. Not hard-- _although Loki couldn’t get that thought out of his head now, Thor only feet away beneath the spray, hard in his own grip before he’d wrap those very same hands about Loki’s hips to hold him near--_ but definitely not entirely soft, either (and god how did that make it _worse?_ )

Clint pulled a dismissive face. “Hey, I’m just saying. I freely admit to _showering_ all the time, and it doesn’t do jack about the next morning.”

Thor almost purred with smugness. He winked, voice oddly guttural. “It does if you do it right.”

Loki’s mind whited out and he took a long swallow of his beer to prevent him from doing anything stupid, like speaking, responding, _breathing_ , but fortunately, his lack of response was swallowed up by Tony’s gales of laughter, with even Bruce chuckling softly at Clint’s expression. Thor grinned while Stark roared with mirth.

“Oh, you had that coming, Barton,” Tony barked between guffaws, wiping his eyes as he mocked, “ _I jerk off near-constantly, and I’m still shit at it_!”

“Oh, come on, dude, you know that’s not what I said,” Clint said over the renewed chuckles, “and I’m not going to be embarrassed by something we all do, for fuck's sake.”

“Indeed,” Loki broke in, eager to alter the flow from Thor and his apparent gift for _lasting fulfilment_ , “I believe the topic at hand was Stark’s need for his avatar to reflect his preferred brand of facial grooming, rather than by any attributes that might deflect my handing his own arse to him in battle.”

Chuckling, Thor drew back as Tony let both his jaw and his freshly grabbed beer bottle fall as if in slow motion, affecting an expression of outrage so overblown that Loki had to allow his smirk free rein rather than attempt to hold the poker face he’d been attempting.

“And just when I thought you and I were becoming BFF’s, _Black Swan_. Let’s do this.” Tony seized his handset, selected _Kenshi_ and proceeded to lose, very badly, five times in a row once he’d decided that best of three wasn’t good enough.

“Ah,” Tony regarded his character as they crumbled to the ground with a curved ice blade through their skull, “it’s possible I may have overestimated my badassery beyond the reach of the _Kart_ track. Future--possibly distant future--rematch?”

Loki inclined his head graciously as Bruce cackled, his less evolved impulses long since taunted into rearing their ugly head, chanting ‘ _two down, two to go’_ happily to himself.

“You next, Clint,” Thor said softly from behind Loki, having stayed sat back in his chair, quietly sniggering to himself, during the all too easily won bouts. “I’ve played him many times before. Let us see how you fare.”

Something promissory lurked under Thor’s casual tone, and Loki grinned inwardly, remembering his and Thor’s legendary battles of old and Loki’s lengthy victory streak, extending over two of their summers together. Thor might be thinking of his seventeen-year-old self and how hard it had been then to defeat fifteen-year-old Loki, but he’d not yet faced him as an eighteen-year-old and undefeated champion of his social group.

Clint selected _Erron Black_ and Loki mentally congratulated him for choosing someone whose precise, yet unexpected tactics had sometimes had him on the back foot with Sandu, but never for long.

Barton was by no means unskilled when it came to _Mortal Kombat,_ it seemed, and Loki found himself having to intently focus on his gameplay for the first time in a very long time. He felt challenged, for once, and he didn’t bother to conceal the tiny smile of enjoyment that hovered at the corners of his lips when, suddenly, Thor’s warm forearm draped itself along his collarbone and pulled him back between his now-open knees. Loki slid back a few inches until his shoulders wedged themselves against the cradle of Thor’s spread thighs, his lime and Corona scented breath a warm breeze against his ear as Thor all but pressed his lips to Loki’s skin to whisper, “Dear me, brother, are you finding Clint harder to beat than you had envisioned? A pity, then, that he and I regularly spar on this and numerous other gaming platforms, because _I_ have beaten him time and again at this game. And here you are, already struggling.” 

“Frankly,” Thor tilted his head, tone lowering further, _taunting_ him, and Loki swallowed, his fingers spasming on the handset before Thor had even finished speaking, his words setting off fireworks that spun and _burned_ inside Loki’s head, “ _I don’t think you can take me._ ”

Loki’s breath caught in his chest, just in time to see Barton make some serious holes in his avatar, as he focused all his efforts on not letting his eyes roll back in his skull. He dragged a whine back into his belly by the same iron control that made his thumbs twitch, and attempted to save his character from his now-certain death even as Loki forced himself to laugh.

“Why _Thor_ , trash talk? That’s so unlike you.” His voice was too low, too raw, too _something_ , because Stark’s eyes were abruptly on him. They took in his position within Thor’s casual clasp with a fractional parting of his lips, blinking furiously as he watched the smile that Loki could almost feel against his earlobe as _Sub Zero_ met his end via Clint’s skills with the six-shooter.

“As losing is usually so unlike you, my dear Loki, I hope you still mean to play me despite already owing Stark his bounty?”

Loki sighed and let his handset fall, using the excuse to pull forward from the clench of Thor’s muscular thighs about him, and offered Clint his hand, uneasy under both his keen look and Stark’s curious stare. “But of course. I always honour my debts even if I am not often in the habit of accruing them. Well played, Barton. Whilst I’m delighted to have trounced Stark for all I must now feed him, the real pleasure comes from finally having met a worthy opponent. You must grant me a rematch, if not several.”

“Sure,” Clint smiled, eyes already back on the screen as he reset the game, “when you’re less distracted, maybe.”

Loki felt a tight ball of something, dread or shame, clench tightly in his gut, and his eyes inadvertently flickered to Stark’s, wondering if he had given himself away, but Tony’s gaze had shifted to Thor. A frown line formed between his brows as he hummed softly, obviously considering.

“Well,” Loki said, too loudly, putting his hands against his thighs, eager to be moving now, to do something, _anything_ to advance them past this uncomfortable moment, “it seems I owe you all dinner. Shall we place the order before I thrash my brother up and down _Earthrealm_?”

“I believe that would also be trash talk, brother.” Thor smirked and Loki eloquently flipped him off before pulling his wallet from his back pocket and turning to Tony. “I believe the spoils are on me. You said something before about a yearning for _Pad Thai,_ yes?”

Tony whooped in belated victory and Loki used the general hubbub, as menus were sourced and numerous options discussed, to focus squarely on the lurking dread and sickening longing at the thought that somehow Thor _knew_ he wanted him and had been using it, exulting in it, to torture Loki.

He forced himself to face it for the ridiculous notion it was, took the grief that sprang from knowing Thor never would or _could_ know, took the rage and fear of being ridiculed and turned it into the only purpose he could let himself have right then.

He was going to utterly _destroy_ Thor, dammit.

++

He’d just beaten _Raiden_ for the fifth time (out of eight, ha! take _that_ supposed thunder god) and was hotly debating himself over whether he’d allowed his abilities to tarnish or if Barton had actually benefitted Thor’s gameplay, and was about to hand off the torch to Clint again and declare himself fatigued of repeatedly kicking Thor’s arse, when the takeout delivery arrived.

Loki, as general dogsbody regarding dinner despite his mostly-restored honour, went downstairs to receive the food at the main door, swiftly followed by Clint who had snagged Loki’s wallet for him from where it had remained on the floor behind him.

Accepting the many bags (the concept of sharing had produced grumbles from the hungry pack and an actual snarl from the decidedly study-exhausted Bruce) of admittedly delicious smelling food, Loki found himself swiftly laden down, and turned to Clint to see that he had already cracked open Loki’s wallet and was paying; he also generously tipped their delivery guy. It was a nothing moment, something that never would have stuck in Loki’s mind beyond the mouth-watering scents coming from inside the bags they each carried up the stairs when Clint abruptly remarked, his brows upraised, “So, that’s a fuckton of rubbers you got in that thing, huh?”

Blinking, Loki hesitated on the steps before he made himself resume their steady pace back up the main staircase. “Yes? Better safe than sorry, as they say.”

“Oh yeah, nothing like a dose of the clap to set a guy on the straight and narrow for, well for good, really. You had any issues like that?” Barton’s tone was as laid back as they came, but Loki couldn’t help his slightly incredulous expression as they locked eyes just as they reach the landing.

“That’s--a very personal question.”

Clint pulled a face and grinned. “Yeah, I know, sorry. Nat’s always saying I need to leave the interrogations to her. It’s just something Stark said, I kind of thought you weren’t actually… _out there_ yet, y’know?”

Loki stopped in the middle of the landing. “And just what?” he asked silkily, “did Tony say about me, precisely? Because I can safely assure you that he, of all people, would _not_ be in the know.”

“Whoa, simmer down, no need for the death glare. It was just something I thought I heard him say before. That you were saving yourself or something? I probably got the wrong end of the stick.”

Closing his eyes and reminding himself that punching Stark for seemingly no reason would likely only make his time with Thor somewhat fraught, Loki drew in a slow, steadying breath through his nose.  “As I apparently have inherited you gossip-mongers along with my ridiculous sibling, I’ll give you the public service announcement so that you may use it to strike Stark’s bullshit from his lips whenever it occurs in the future. Firstly, no, I have never had an STD. Thor had one once and, as you say, it was enough to scare us both into playing safe and being routinely tested, or at least I hope he still is. Please feel free to ask him embarrassing questions about it. Secondly, Tony has no idea about my sexual practices, but I obviously have the protection for a reason, Barton. Does that satisfy this sudden urge you have to bond, or need I give you a play by play of every discarded condom to quench your thirst for personal knowledge?”

“So, you’re _not_ saving yourself then?”

Loki shuddered. “Oh good god, Clint, you don’t actually want the play by play, do you? I take it back, you can’t have one. I didn’t care for it when Stark felt it his duty to intervene when I was looking for a hook-up the other weekend, and I certainly don’t care for it now if this is your version of the same,. I -already have one overbearing-”

“ _DUDE_ , breathe already. Jeez. I honestly don’t care, I was just confused with what I thought I knew, alright?”

Loki drew in a few more dragon-hot breaths and stamped down on the irrational urge to scream and stomp his feet, before glaring balefully at Barton and moving forward once more.

“I literally just thought,” Clint continued, “that from what Stark said, you weren’t getting any back at Asgard and that you’re not getting any up this way, either. So, really, that looked like a hella hopeful cache of rubbers you had going on in there, so I figured maybe you were waiting to, y’know, jump some special someone or some shit. No biggy.”

Loki rolled his eyes as they re-entered Bruce and Thor’s rooms. “That’s…not _entirely_ inaccurate, I suppose. It’s not that I don’t-- _ahem--_ ‘get any’ as you so charmingly phrased it,” Loki began, quietly, very aware of where Thor laughingly trounced Tony despite his finally having tried a new character, “it’s just hard to socialise in a town that worships the very ground Thor walks upon. Even in the gay clubs, he casts a long shadow. I would by far rather try my luck up here where I am as yet unknown as his brother. I’ve just not managed it quite yet.”

He smiled ruefully at Clint and shot him a mock glare. “I keep getting distracted. It’s almost as though you sorry lot are actually sort of _fun_ to hang out with or something.”

Clint nodded back faux-solemnly. “Or something,” he concurred, and Loki was grateful that Clint didn’t bring up that he certainly managed to escape the group quickly enough when his own sex life happened to collide with his time with them.

Bruce came over then, all but clapping in his glee to continue his ‘relaxation’ day by allowing himself to eat something aside from power bars or the horrific toxic green smoothies that Tony kept trying to force on him after too many days studying, and they got on with the task of sorting out whose meal was whose.

“Does that mean you might not be coming here next year then?” Clint suddenly, softly, asked. “Because then you’ll be back in another place where everyone knows him already?”

Loki sighed. He’d avoided answering this question for months now, but no matter what he kept telling himself he just couldn’t see what else he could possibly do. “No, I’ll come here,” he answered, equally softly, his words too low for Bruce to catch, lost in raptures over his _Dim Sum_ as he was. “I just can’t imagine willingly going somewhere he isn’t when I have the option to be here with him. And all of you, of course.”

_Oh nice save, that wasn’t telling AT ALL._  

His inner voice was screaming even as he mentally applauded himself for not just breaking down and informing his new, oddly watchful ally that he had no idea what to do because if he committed to a choice, it would make it all the harder to have it torn away from him once the truth eventually came out. 

_It had to_ ; _he didn’t know how long he could keep on breathing under the weight of the lies weighing down on him, dammit_.

“Must get annoying though. I get it. I have an older brother too, he’s--well, I like for people to think of me for me, not for him.”

Loki found himself nodding sympathetically, mocking himself soundly on the inside for his new mawkish, apparently _likeable_ persona, a casualty of his own ridden raw nerves, too burned out to mask his feelings and too open to ignore those of others. “I like it, sometimes. That push to make sure you do something that’s just _yours_ … But that’s all I have, really, the push. Everywhere I look, everything I do, it just seems to bring me back to his side.”

Swallowing, he looked up to see both Bruce and Clint listening to him silently now, so he rolled his eyes self-deprecatingly. “Don’t mind me. I’ve long been brainwashed by my parents, and by all of Asgard really. Thor’s the firstborn, their eldest, the favourite, whereas I am--“

“ _My_ favourite,” Thor finished quietly, coming to stand next to him and Loki blinked, feeling colour suffuse his cheeks at the unchecked, unabashed sincerity in Thor’s face.

He _meant_ it.

Loki smiled slowly, trying to store the moment away for the years when he was alone, with only the memory to warm himself by, breath catching slightly as Thor smiled gently back.

Tony elbowed his way through to make cooing, slightly lascivious noises to his own dishes of _Pad Thai_ and _Som Tum_ , making grabby, greedy hands at the complimentary carton of dumplings, only to have them batted away as Thor filled his own plate, pronouncing them as _his_ now, his favourites. He flipped one into the air and caught it in his mouth on a moan and Loki, too busy rolling his eyes and pretending to disapprove, didn’t catch his wording until Tony paused, mid-whirl back to the chairs.

“Ohhhh, you want the _Dim Sum?_ But I thought baby brother here was your _most favourite-est_?” he teased, batting his eyelashes, and Loki repressed a strong urge to fling knives directly at his face. The thought was chased away as Thor slung an arm about his hips to draw Loki closer to his side as he flipped another dumpling up and into his mouth.

“I’ll have both.” He beamed and Loki knew, no matter what truth leaked out over the coming year, that nothing but the very greatest force could wrest him from Thor’s side. He _belonged_ there.

“Don’t hog the dim sum,” Loki said quietly and stole the carton back from Thor’s hands with a smile.


	11. Part Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the line between 'big brother' and 'frustrating cock-teasing bastard' gets blurred a bit.

**Part 11:**

He woke, warm and happy, unable to put his finger on quite why, his dreams skittering away faster than he could reach for them, sighing as he nuzzled closer to his favourite heat source. He was tucked against Thor with his face the only part of him above the covers, and Thor laying sprawled and gently snoring on his back as Loki nestled all along his side, rubbing his cheek against Thor’s chest as it rose and fell beneath him.

There had been a brief, awkward moment the night before as Thor had strolled off to shower with an almost playful grin, leaving Loki to curse his general lack of intoxication as his body recognised the actuality of his vision of mere hours before, happening now mere feet away. 

He’d glanced over to where Bruce had snuggled into his own bed, sleepy and content as he chatted with Betty, and--knowing he had no chance whatsoever of taking care of any problems that may have arisen with the mental image of Thor _hot and wet in his own grip, maybe biting his own lip to keep quiet--_ Loki had sternly forced himself to relive the slice of glass through his flesh, picturing Sif’s expression of triumph as she’d led Thor to whichever enclosed space could fit them for what she had in mind, pictured Thor _wanting_ that, wanting _her_ …

It had been somewhat too successful, overall, leaving Loki feeling hollow and jealous in a room where one of the occupants was blissfully in love and the other, returning happy and water-warmed, and blissfully ignorant of the depths of Loki’s own malformed love for him. So he had lain quiet and unhappy even as Thor had gathered him close to sleep, and let his remembered triumphs of the day soothe his hurts until he’d eventually drifted off.

He shifted now, just a little, reluctant to give up the soft cobwebs of sleep still spread over him and softening the world outside, and stilled as he realised something that he’d not noticed previously.

He was hard _,_ his cock aching lightly where it pressed against Thor’s thigh. His own thigh was draped carelessly over Thor’s leg, seemingly possessive even in his sleep.

Loki knew he should pull away, gently retract his leg and roll onto his back, or angle his hips away, just do _something_ already, but the lure of that now distant bliss that his dreams had promised was too strong and, nuzzling further into Thor’s t-shirt clad chest, he closed his eyes and let his hips roll _just once_.

He bit his lip to hold in a groan, giddy with sheer disbelief as well as pleasure, unable to process the sensation of his cock actually pushing against the ridiculous perfection that was Thor’s muscles. He almost swallowed his tongue a moment later as Thor’s gentle snore caught in his throat on a grunt, and he shifted in his sleep, rolling towards him. Loki went slack and let the force of Thor’s idle roll reposition him. His arms fell back and caught between their chests as Thor lazily threw his arm across him in turn, humming as resettled himself; he drew Loki nearer and his thigh slipped between Loki’s and…

_Dammit_.

Any hope Loki had had of a shift in angle working in his favour was obliterated. His stiff length mercilessly dragged along the hard line of Thor’s thigh as he settled against him, and ended up pressed into the top of his groin. Loki had to allow himself what he hoped sounded like a drowsy grunt of discomfort to disguise both the horror of being caught with ‘ _morning wood_ ’ and to smother the surge of dark elation at the thought of his cock almost in contact with his own hidden mark inked into Thor’s skin.

Thor’s grip tightened further still, pressing closer and wrapping his arm about Loki’s waist, yawning as he nuzzled into the dark sweep of his hair, his body going taut on an aborted stretch as he hummed again in the back of his throat.

His face hidden, shoved unceremoniously into Thor’s shoulder as it was, Loki allowed himself an agonised clench of both eyes and teeth. Thor’s close embrace torturously crushed his erection between them-- _couldn’t Thor FEEL him for fuck's sake--_ and waited. 

Thor was waking; his limbs shifted and his breathing rose from the slow, deep rhythm of sleep into something lighter, faster as he rubbed his cheek against the soft hair caught at Loki’s nape and pressed the pads of his fingertips deeper into Loki’s form.

Loki waited, forcing himself to continue to breathe low and slow, his body relaxed as though still asleep, just waiting for Thor’s obviously sleep-addled mind to regain itself far enough to realise just what he was holding to him as well as whom.

A moment passed, then another.

Nothing.

Thor sighed, clearly awake, and yet he _still didn’t release him._ Loki swallowed as casually as he could, the urge to rut and roll his hips against the pressure on his cock almost enough to make him weep, and Thor burning him at every point of contact as he continued to hold him tightly until Loki _simply couldn’t take it._

Without considering what he was doing--with no real knowledge as to whether it was from a need for further contact or out of the desperation to make Thor _back the fuck off_ before Loki could sink his own fingertips in and refuse to ever let go--Loki let slip a small, soft noise of hurt and rocked his hips, letting his dick ride the motion up over the edge of Thor’s pelvis as he burrowed closer, rolling his body closer to the mattress and buying himself a scant inch or so of breathing room.

Thor, suddenly holding himself very still, appeared to have finally gotten a clue. His face pressed into Loki’s hair as he took a long, slow breath before he slowly, carefully, extricated himself, large hands steadying Loki’s carefully relaxed limbs as he untangled them and moved to sit at the edge of the bed.

Loki’s face, carefully placed against the pillow as Thor slid his shoulder from beneath him, was too upturned to risk cracking an eyelid, so he continued his snuffled, sleepy shufflings against the bed linen, frowning slightly as he mimed seeking out the warm spot, unsure if he imagined Thor’s eyes on him.

There was a beat, silent but for Thor’s shaky sigh, and the sounds of him stretching before the mattress shifted and the soft pads of his tread signalled Thor’s passage to the bathroom.

Loki waited past the clicking of the lock, past the whisper of what must be Thor undressing, his sleep clothes hitting the floor, and waited until he heard the shower door shut, then the steady drizzle of the water against the tiles interrupted by Thor’s naked skin and--

His eyes flew open and he jerked upright. His gaze landed first on the definitely shut bathroom door and then on Bruce’s _empty bed_.

His laptop was gone. His bag was gone. Bruce must have headed straight back to the library, his one day of relaxation officially passed, it seemed.

“Oh thank _fuck_!” Loki hissed and threw himself back down against the pillows, one hand already tearing at the front of his pyjama pants as he spat as hard as he could into the palm of the other. Planting his knees against the mattress, he released his waistband to shove his free hand over his mouth and allowed himself a single, heavy groan as he closed the other hand around his cockhead.

_Fuck, fuck, FUCK_ , _there isn’t time for this!_

He giggled, the sound strangled into a grunt as he snapped his hips up, already establishing a frantic rhythm, teeth sunk into his lower lip as he applied both hands to the task. He was wild with the permission to think of Thor, and _only_ Thor, granted by the happy circumstance of Thor inadvertently using both his proximity and his own hip bone as a masturbatory aid, the fact and necessity of coming _quickly_ only adding further fuel to the fire.

_Thor… Thor in the NEXT ROOM, naked beneath the water... Thor naked in the shower touching himself… Thor touching himself thinking of Loki... Thinking of Loki hard against him… of being hard against Loki… of Loki’s hand being the one touching him…_

Frenzied and swallowing desperate cries as he thrashed against Thor’s pillows-- _Thor’s bed, he was fucking his own fist in Thor’s bed with Thor’s smell all around him--_ Loki wished desperately for several extra hands, as his nipples, balls and ass were all woefully neglected in his rapid downhill tumble towards ecstasy. He had one palm cupped and repeatedly circling the crown, collecting what pre-ejaculate hadn’t yet spilt down the shaft as he hitched and pumped his hips through the circle of his own fist, dizzy as his breath came in short, sharp puffs through his nose, whining in rapture as well as terror, his vision blurring as he thought he heard something from inside the bathroom.

_Was the water still on? Had Thor heard him? Called out to him? Had he called for him as Loki ached to do now, Thor’s name a strangled shout between his teeth?_

Loki’s mind helpfully conjured the image of Thor, his face twisted in something so close to pain that Loki had wondered at it during his barely second-long glance back in the hammock so long ago now, picturing a hand braced on the shower wall, supporting Thor’s weight as he milked the orgasm from his shaking body, Loki’s name a cracked whisper on his lips…

_Oh god… please...Thor…THOR._

Sides heaving, Loki gave himself a precious moment or so to get air enough back into his lungs to shake the sparkles from the edges of his vision, galvanised into action by the sound of the water being shut off and the shower door creaking open.

He was up and off the bed so fast that he reeled momentarily, diving for his thankfully-open bag and snatching up the socks of yesterday. He wiped his hands with trembling, hasty motions, one eye on the bathroom door even as he looked himself over, looking for any spilt droplets that might have leaked from his handful of come, only jerking his sleep trousers back into place when he was satisfied that his hands would leave no marks on the material.

Breathing a ragged sigh of relief at the sound of the toilet flushing and the tap running as Thor began to brush his teeth, Loki shoved the wadded up, now inside-out socks to the very bottom of his bag.

He darted back around to the side of the bed where he’d been sleeping, hoping to pass muster long enough to get into the bathroom himself to wash his hands properly, and straightened the bedclothes to look more sleep-rumpled rather than where he’d writhed his way to orgasm. 

Loki had just hopped back onto the edge, intending to sit, casually awake, to await his turn for the bathroom, when he caught his reflection in the mirrored _Viking Motorcycle_ sign over Thor’s dresser.

_Fuck_.

Flushed, rumpled, breathless and heavy-lidded, Loki imagined he couldn’t look any more freshly-fucked than if he really had been in that shower stall with Thor.

The taps shut off in the bathroom and Loki leapt from the bed to stand before the bathroom door, fists clenching, the remnants of come turned tacky between his fingers as he blurted, “Aren’t you done yet, Thor? I’m fit to burst here.”

There was a second too long before there was a reply and Loki frowned before he blushed genuinely at the low chuckle from within. “My apologies, Loki. I forgot that you would…need the bathroom, as well. Just one moment.”

Thor thought that Loki was trying to get to the bathroom to deal with his little _morning problem_ , Loki realised, and ground his teeth at the amusement that lurked under Thor’s polite reply.

_I wouldn’t have ‘needed it’ had you been less intent on imprinting my dick on you, you frustrating cock-teasing bastard_.

Loki smirked to himself as he imagined saying the words aloud, and had to swiftly wipe the expression from his face as the door opened on a cloud of steam that smelled like damp heat and Thor’s favoured body wash. Swallowing hard, Loki made to push past, his hands crossed low across his body as though to hide the erection that Thor believed he was still sporting, hoping the ruse would keep Thor’s sometimes too-sharp gaze from his face, only to find Thor blocking his way.

Thor’s still droplet-bedecked form neatly stepped into his path and his extended arm blocked the doorway on his other side. A towel was wrapped tight and low about his hips, Loki’s tattoo twisted black and _mouth-watering_ against his skin as he rumbled, “In a hurry this morning, are we?” and Loki was torn between stabbing him and licking the smirk from his face.

“Thor,” Loki snapped and met his gaze steadily while hoping a small show of temper might explain away the brightness of his eyes and cheeks alike, “I need the bathroom.”

Smile twisting into something Loki felt should look a lot less at home on Thor’s face than it did, Thor leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. “Say please,” he commanded, tone soft and eyes stupidly blue in stark contrast to his water-darkened hair. Loki had to remind himself that there was no way Thor could understand that torturing Loki this way was so much crueller than he intended. He leaned closer and bared his teeth in response to Thor’s self-satisfied smirk.

“Let me through _now_ ,” he enunciated clearly, “or next time, I’ll just do it in your bed.”

Thor went immediately, satisfyingly red. “ _Loki_!” he spluttered and Loki lifted his hands, his self-control ramped to its highest setting as he placed his palms against Thor’s lightly-haired, slickly-hot chest and _pushed_.

“And if you don’t, I won’t just piss on your bed, I’ll do it in those beloved boots of yours as well.”

Thor all but sagged with relief, eyes closing briefly as he stepped aside to let Loki pass. He muttered something about someone being _cranky in the mornings these days_ and Loki had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing as he closed the door behind him, only giving in once he’d pointlessly flushed the toilet and turned on the shower. His shoulders still shook long after the giggles had passed, as his hands trailed slowly over himself again and he let himself imagine how it would be if Thor had really meant his teasing the way Loki’s libido had taken it.

_‘_ Say _please,'_   imaginary Thor’s voice ordered again and Loki drowned the sound of his second orgasm in the spray and pretended that it was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's so short this week but the next few chapters are lengthy *snorts* by necessity so I figured keeping this one (and Loki's frustration) to a minimum will work better in the long run! Thanks for reading <3


	12. Part Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is plastic cock-blocking, drunken whining, and cautiously hopeful plans made.

**Part 12:**

He spent the following week in a smug, self-congratulatory haze, finally convinced he’d cracked it.

He’d misjudged Sif. _Imaginary boyfriend_ Thor was almost as good as reality (ok, nowhere near, but he was a damn sight better than no Thor at all).

_Brother_ Thor messaged Loki constantly, “missing him” and pestering him and so warm and adorable and funny and naive and _wonderful,_ that imaginary Thor would have to step in.

Loki would answer all of the oddly teasing texts, insist to himself that he had it all under control and then, when it was all too much (at least once a day) he would fling himself at his bed. He would then righteously decree that slicking up and riding one of his toys with Thor’s name in his mouth would be taking it too far (dammit) and basically declare everything else fair game.

He planned to only visit Thor every Saturday, hell if he could make himself resist heading straight for him like a besotted homing pigeon, he might even head over to Midgard on Friday, blow the brains out of anyone hot and hung enough to be worthy of his attention on the Midgardian club scene, and be on Thor’s doorstep, sated and supportive, by morning.

His plan--and frantic jerking off sessions--hit its first speed bump on Thursday evening. 

He’d retired to his room, bidding his parents goodnight after a quietly pleasant evening watching one of his mother’s many-favoured old Hollywood movies, and the lure of the familiar crossed with old fashioned glamour had been too much to resist. The familiar restless tingle of arousal had mounted with every step towards his room, his body adapting quickly to a week of hiding out and letting himself be blinded by pleasure and the image of Thor’s smile, already anticipating his furious, hard hands upon himself.

But Loki had wanted something _more_ that night.             

Contrary to Clint’s suppositions or Stark’s insinuations, Loki really wasn’t saving himself for anyone, not purposefully, anyway. It was just that, in his fumbling’s with Sandu and those he gifted with his presence in the bars and clubs at night, he’d found that nothing quite worked for him harder than something inside him, than the idea of being _taken_ and the only real problem with that was that he’d discovered it alone.

San had been a good friend in as much as a scheming, naturally devious possible sociopath could be, attractive enough to practice on, and to learn with. There had always been too great a shine to his eyes, however, when Loki had been on his knees, too much calculation in his expression in the moments where Loki had laughed, weak and shaking from the heights of his climax, too much avarice overall to allow him to be the one _inside_ Loki.

It wasn’t about his virginity, if such a thing even existed when he’d lost count of the guys he’d jerked off and swallowed, if the hours spent in the shower riding his carefully selected favourite, complete with suction cup, chosen for its similarity to his own length and girth (alright, slightly smaller, but he couldn’t let himself go larger because then, he thought, _well,_ Loki hadn’t admitted to himself that it would have been Thor he thought of, Thor on his mind every time he’d let himself sink onto the slick, cold silicone, wishing it were warm and flesh and _him_ …) well, if none of that counted because he’d never, _actually_ , had a man inside him, then yes, technically he was a virgin.

Loki didn’t care. He didn’t want just any old sweating, grunting idiot spilling inside him; he wanted to be so fucking consumed by his need that Loki wouldn’t care about power and control and what they might have over him if he gave them this, gave _himself_. So he’d wait, wait ‘til someone came along that was more worthy, more compelling, more beautiful than Thor.

He snorted, casting his favourite porno to his TV from his laptop and muting it, more enamoured of the top’s rolling hips than he was of the pathetic, scripted moans, and selected his second favourite toy (no suction cup) and lube. He lay down on the bed to have a nice relax before ideally fucking himself blind before bed. 

He was most of the way through his favourite part--his fingers slick and long and _not enough_ inside him, wiping them on a towel as he reached for the dildo--when his phone chimed.

**[Are you awake?]**

Loki could have ignored it; he could have left it and answered after he’d come so hard he could only speak in emojis; he could have just ignored it ‘til the next morning if he’d really wanted to, but it was _Thor_.

**_[It’s not even midnight, Thor, of course, I’m awake. Why?]_ **

A frisson curled itself up his spine, the hair on his arms and legs rising as an idea presented itself. 

It was the sort of thing he would usually have dismissed immediately, whatever shreds of conscience he still had left regarding his feelings for Thor bestirring themselves to tell him _no._ It wasn’t as though Thor was there where he could see or hear him; he would never know if the hand that Loki wasn’t using to text him just happened to be ramming a six inch plasticised cock in and out of him.

Grasping the forest green phallus, Loki slicked it with quick, shaking strokes, and shivered under the duelling sensations of shame and excitement as he laid back, drawing his knees up and eased it into himself.  Exhaling a stuttered laugh as he licked his lips, Loki debated just how fond of his remaining morals he really was as he hitched his hips against his hand, already anxious for more speed and depth than he was getting, when his phone rang.

“Fuck, fuck, _FUCK,_ Thor--god _dammit_!” Loki wrenched the toy from him with slightly too much force, his eyes crossing briefly as he gasped and swore, flung it back onto the towel it had previously rested on and snatched up baby wipes for his hands.

He managed to catch his phone just before the automated voicemail kicked in.

“ _What,_ Thor? What couldn’t wait long enough for you to text me, I was--in the shower, for fuck’s sake!”

There was a beat, and then Thor’s voice spilled down the line, thick and grouchy. “I miss you. _Come see me_.”

There was a distinct, petulant whine at the back of Thor’s standard rich rumble of a voice and Loki had to close his eyes to block out the moment the guy topping on his big screen lifted the bottom and started pounding him into the wall. Loki swallowed several times in swift succession until the whimper in his throat sank away.

“I--I _am_ coming to see you, Thor. I’ll be there Saturday.”

“It’s, it’s not good enough. I’ve been thinking about it and it’s not. It’s not.”

Loki rolled slightly onto his side, pressing his face into the pillows as he considered smothering himself. “Thor, you’re drunk. Go to bed.”

“No, but, it _isn’t_ good enough, Loki. I only get you for a little of each week, just like I only had you for a part of each summer, and I’m tired of it, aren’t you?”

Loki sighed and rubbed the headache that had only just sprung to life from his temples. “Well, obviously, Thor, yes. That’s why I started coming to visit you in the first place, you great idiot, because for some insane reason I actually missed you.”

“I miss you. I miss you right now, and it’s just stupid, Loki, because you won’t, you won’t--”

“I won’t what, Thor? Seriously, if you’re too drunk to make sense then you should just go to bed. What have you been doing to be this drunk this early anyway?”

“I _know_ , Loki, Mother told me.”

Loki sat up so fast he almost heaved. With a hand over his mouth, his eyes watered as he choked out a single word: “What?!”

_He knows, Thor KNOWS, oh god, he knows, how long has Thor known, is this good, is it TERRIBLE, oh GOD why had Thor not said he knew before?_

“She’s been looking at your mail as it arrives. Don’t be angry with her, it’s hard for her with me far away, and you’re so very secretive, Loki. She loves you, she just wanted to know--she saw your acceptance letters. All of them.”

Loki felt all the blood that had drained from his face only seconds previously _surge_ back into it as rage boiled immediately to the surface of his brain. _He_ was secretive? When they still, STILL looked him in the face and lied to him _daily_?

He ground his teeth together to keep the fury from ripping free and pouring down the line to bubble over Thor. His hand slipped up to cover his eyes as though he could hide from the hurt, and he tried to keep his voice steady as he responded, “She’s been going through my mail?”

“Not, not on purpose, Loki. Sorry, I mean yes, obviously on purpose--but only because she loves you. She saw the first acceptance letter and you didn’t tell her, and then another and still you didn’t, so she, she just, started checking the post before you got up. She didn’t touch them, didn’t read them…well, she did, but only once you’d thrown them out,”

There came a sudden burst of sound in the background. “ _Hey, who gave Thor his phone back?”_

“She said you threw them all out? All but Midgard, she thinks, because she swears she saw what looked like an acceptance letter go up to your room but all the letters you’ve thrown out are for elsewhere and I just… Why wouldn’t you tell us that, Loki? Tell _me_? You can go anywhere you want, you got in everywhere, they all want you, that’s amazing, and you didn’t tell me.”

_‘Thor, buddy, C'mon, you said you weren’t gonna do this.’_

Loki clenched his eyes against the quick burn of tears. “I didn’t want to talk about it,” he whispered.

“You…? But why? If this is about how much you hate school that’s just not good enough. You could walk in here _tomorrow_ and ace my exams if I gave you time enough to skim my books and you know it. It’s about not coming _here_ , isn’t it? Mother thinks you’re going to, but you would have told me, right? I’ve asked you and you wouldn’t say, so I can only think you don’t want to come here. I just can’t think _why,_ Loki? I want so much for you to be here, with me, like it’s supposed to be, you and me side by side, forever and--”

There was the sound of a scuffle and Thor grunted, and suddenly Tony’s voice was on the line. “Hey, Dorothy, sorry about that. Technical difficulties. Um. So, Yeah. You told Clint something about where you were going to school, but he couldn’t remember, and he didn’t like to betray a confidence anyway, but the fact that you told him and not _Cersei_ here has caused something of a fraternal meltdown. Bruce took his phone and hid it--or so we thought--several, _many_ , drinks back, and Steve is currently borrowing from you guys’ playbook and sitting on him so I can talk to you, but seriously, he is not a happy camper. _Do better_... Oh, look. He got loose. Hee-eey, big fella- _oomph…”_

Loki was cross-legged now, elbows on his knees as he breathed slowly in and out, forcing himself to calm down even as the jagged edges of his hurt caught and tore on him as they resettled themselves.

“Loki?”

“Yes, I...I’m here, Thor. I’m sorry.”

“No, I am sorry. Steve says I should not have called you in my present state but I… I just…”

“I want to come to Midgard. I asked Barton not to tell you because I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.” _Particularly my own._ “I do want to be there with you, Thor. You--you’ve no idea how much.”

For almost ten seconds there was no sound but each of their ragged breaths and Stark’s voice murmuring inaudible words somewhere in the room beyond Thor, who finally spoke. “All those times, Loki, all the times that people said it wasn’t right, that we were barely together for all those years and I never thought anything of it. I loved our time together but, I don’t know, I just never realised how much I resented our time apart and now, thinking you might come here, I just--” Thor swallowed heavily and Loki couldn’t help the smile that tugged at him, Thor’s emotions were generally close to the surface, his heart all but perpetually on his sleeve, but hearing the choke in his voice and knowing it was for _him_ lifted Loki’s heart back into his chest. “I want you by my side.”

Lip trembling as joy and sorrow battled for his vocal cords, Loki inhaled and allowed himself a short, mock long-suffering sigh before he trusted himself to reply.

“I’m not joining that idiotic fraternity, you realise? One ridiculous brother is quite enough, thank you. I’ll get my own place off campus, or--I mean, _we_ could. If you like.”

Loki could hear Thor’s smile all the way from Midgard. “I believe I would like, Loki. I’d like it immensely.”

The pause on Loki’s screen dissolved to a blank, black screen as the sleep setting overrode the casting app and the porn disappeared. Loki cast his discarded dildo a regretful glance as his libido hid somewhere behind everything else he was repressing as he flopped back against the pillows once more. “Fine then. If that’s settled, then I’d like to get back to my shower, and you should probably go and drink as much water as Bruce recommends and then another few glasses, going by the sound of you.”

Thor’s pout was absurdly audible for all it wasn’t a video call. “It’s not my fault, Clint says I have hidden depths and that my relationship issues with you could sustain a psychiatrist for life.”

“Tell Barton his gift for understatement is only equalled by his inability to hold his tongue, and that when you move out, you’re taking all the gaming consoles with you.”

Loki listened as his words were dutifully parroted back to the room at large, and then, “Clint says that’s fine because everybody will be at ours anyway and Tony says if I move out, then he’s buying whatever is next door and Bruce says if you let him live with you instead of me he’ll be incredibly quiet and neat and never keep you on the phone when you were trying to shower…oh.”

“Yes, _oh_ , Thor. Tell Bruce I’ll think about it and I’ll see you and your absurd friends on Saturday. Good night.” And with that, he disconnected the call and threw the phone across the room because-- _well_ … 

_Thor._

Loki’s brain felt like old clockwork, as though he could actually feel cogs rattling against each other, grinding in his mind in places that wore them down, polished and whirring in others.

He’d been so sure that there was no way he could possibly have his cake and eat it, but maybe this wasn’t that. This would be all _Thor_ \-- _his_ cake, _his_ contentment. 

Loki didn’t want to live with him, to suffer through the agonies of watching him stumble home post-anonymous fuck or have to listen to him through the walls if he brought said fucks home with him.

He _did_ want to be with him, though, to have a place always by Thor’s side, loved and treasured no matter what. _Gods_ did he want that. He would just have to learn how to conquer the side of him that reached for Thor when it wanted him. He doubted he would, or could ever, stop loving or wanting him, as their brotherhood was a beautiful lie that Loki wanted to set a match to almost every second, except for when he was with Thor.

He blew his cheeks out and rose for the fictional shower he now needed to wipe the unnecessary lube from his body, but he paused as his phone chimed on the floor.

**[If you choose Bruce over me I’ll get the apartment above, Tony will take the one below and Clint the one next to you and we promise you’ll never have a moment’s peace.]**

**[ _I’ll take you over Bruce if you find us somewhere with a pool and guarantee me one mob free day per week, more if Tony is going to live next door._ ]**

**[Done.]**

Loki smiled idiotically at the message, imagining Thor’s smug expression, thinking he’d won without any idea of just how hard his life could be if Loki chose to make it so, were they to live together. His smile dimmed as his thoughts circled back to the mental torture of Thor a bedroom away entwined with someone who could never deserve him.

_All hook-ups to be conducted away from the apartment_ , Loki added to the list, mentally readying himself for the slew of rules that would need to be put in place for him to handle cohabiting with the forbidden object of his desires as well as his puppy pals following him here, there, and everywhere.

He stood under the spray, exhausted and put out at the lack of orgasm, too cranky to try for another as the idea kept drifting back to him. It wouldn’t just work when they lived together, it might well work beautifully now. He could outsource his less brotherly needs and be back by Thor for breakfast.

He was done with toys and waiting for someone ‘worthy’. Tomorrow he would take himself to whatever club in Midgard had the best reputation for hook-ups, get himself fucked six ways from Sunday, and then spend the rest of the weekend quiescent and content in Thor’s arms. 

It wasn’t perfect. He might even hate himself, and Thor, from time to time, but in all his expectations of being torn from Thor’s side, he’d never readied himself for the possibility of Thor refusing to let him go. He might lose everything else, had expected to, in fact, but if Thor was prepared to fight to remain his brother no matter what, then Loki was inclined to let him.

His plan decided upon, Loki exited the shower and swiftly towelled himself dry, then threw himself back onto his bed (heedless of the masturbatory supplies that clattered to the floor) and pretended that this was how it felt to be content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's short again, next weeks is literally three times its length though so hopefully that will make up for it ;)


	13. Part Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Meet me in the club - it's goin' down..."

**Part 13:**

Several Midori Sours into his night, and sandwiched between two men who were clearly desirous of serving his every need, Loki was even more pleased with his plan than he had been the day before. The _Zeus_ nightclub was everything its reputation had promised and more.

The walls were lined with curtains and columns, neatly encapsulating each separate seating area, the gentle white light was almost chaste by comparison to the darkness of the central dance floor, only broken by pillars ringed with the club’s signature blue lights. The seating and bar areas were lit just enough to sit and talk, and for those far enough from the light fixtures, whose opaque curtains were almost able to conceal the occupants when drawn, there were places to watch and be watched.

Loki let the beat move him for a few moments more between his chosen partners for the night before ducking out. He fanned himself and laughed, excusing himself as he went to the bar for something to cool his senses and quicken his blood all at once.

Making his way from the darkened dance floor and past the throbbing speakers, sentinels that enclosed the dance floor so that those choosing to favour the bar and less _intimate_ booths could remain aloof and upright, separate from those they came to see, to covet. Loki let out a shivery laugh as he blinked his way over to the bar. He leaned his elbows against it and took a moment for his eyes to readjust while he waited to be served.

He'd chosen well, he thought. 

He'd arrived at the bar with need already thrumming under his skin. He’d taken the time to leisurely toy with himself before he’d left the house, leaving himself open (if unsatisfied) to all sorts of activities. He’d ignored all the men at the bar and taken himself straight to the dance floor, eager for rhythm and the pulsing beat of the bass to flow over his skin. He'd danced as though he had already had everything he wanted, closing his eyes and luxuriating in the feel of his muscles shifting in time with the music, and wishing for hands to hold and move him, smiling victoriously when they appeared.

Loki had swiftly realised he had not one but two hopefuls, both attractive, both determined and together almost enough to drive Thor from his mind. He'd managed to dissuade them from their territorial attitudes towards him as he’d danced with each, then both, and made it very clear that he preferred not to choose between them by grinding on one while he allowed the other to suck on his tongue.

Overall, it was looking very promising.

They'd attempted to draw him away to the gauze-curtained nooks on several occasions, but Loki wasn't going to go until he was so desperate for it he would beg and, frankly, he was getting close.

One of them, the slightly shorter one, the one with the talented mouth, had chided him gently as he'd pulled away for his third cool-down drink. "It's not nice to tease, you know."

Loki had smiled, low lidded and shark-like, hoping his eyes brimmed with every dirty promise he'd denied himself in Thor's name. "Only if you don't intend to follow through, and I assure you, I very much intend to."

The shorter one (what had he said his name was? Alan? Aaron?) had all but swooned at that, and it had bought him something along the lines of seeming obedience. He'd noticed the two of them with their heads together as he'd made his way to the bar the last time. Once he'd returned, they'd clearly decided to pull out all the stops, no longer attempting to lead him to the privacy of the darkened corners of the room or into the gently, if suggestively lit, alcoves. They were seemingly now content to drive him mad between them as they danced, their hands and mouths moving together with one purpose, and Loki very much intended to let them have their reward… He just needed one more drink to cool him down.

"Hm. Thought it was you."

Loki jerked around to find Natasha next to him, an elbow against the bar as she leaned against it sideways, not quite blocking the view of Clint a few stools down, seemingly placing their drink order.

"Natasha?" Loki's horror pinched itself into a chilly tone of disbelief. "I... wouldn't have thought this was your sort of scene?"

_Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!_

He'd googled the Midgardian club scene so carefully, looking for places far and away from the co-dependency club's favoured hangouts, determined to not be caught there earlier than Thor was expecting, specifically not in such a place, nor such positions, as he intended to be.

"Well, that would depend on what you assume to be _my sort of scene_?” Natasha raised a slow eyebrow, her smile untroubled, and Loki felt a stab of envy for the ease with which she wore her own skin. "Sometimes it’s fun to people watch,” she allowed a hint of teeth to show past her perfect lipstick and Loki had the distinct sensation of being in the presence of a deadly predator, “Sometimes we do more than watch. Anyway, that’s not really why you were afraid to see me here."

Loki forced his face into something as close to an imperious smile as he could make it. "You’re mistaking my surprise for fear. I wouldn’t dream of begrudging you or Clint an evening’s revelry -- it’s a basic human need after all -- it was merely that my intention was to remain unknown here. I had not expected to see you…or any of the usual crowd."

Nat's smile twisted, wry amusement evident on her face and in her voice as she chuckled.

"What you mean is, you hadn’t expected any of your brother’s playmates in _this_ particular locale and, now that you’ve found your assumptions to be quite grievously in error, you’d like to know if Thor is likely to show up here, yes?"

Loki breathed a short huff down his nose and gave Natasha his most unimpressed look as Clint joined them, two cocktails in hand.

"We come here a fair amount and I've never seen Thor here, if that's what's got you glaring like that," he said, amused. "Tony could attest to that if need be, although he stopped coming here around the time Steve transferred... I can text him to check if you need?"

"No. _Gods_ , no, alright. I just--look--I just wanted a night to…"

Nat placed a hand on his arm. "You don't have to tell us. You're legal and as long as you're not ashamed of what you're doing, or being forced in any way, we would never get involved, alright?” She favoured him with a deliberately sultry wink, “We basic humans have needs, after all."

Loki nodded slowly. _You won't tell Thor?_ The words hovered on his lips, so he bit them back until the babyish query died down, and he jerked slightly as a warm, somewhat sweaty palm rested on his shoulder.

"Hey, gorgeous, you've been ages. Not ditching us, are you?" Aaron or Alan's tone and smile were jovial, but there was a tightness in his eyes and fingertips that said he honestly suspected that Loki was upgrading to the, admittedly very attractive, friends he'd somehow made along the way.

Loki leaned into the touch and tried to smile reassuringly. “Not at all, just got talking to some friends while I was waiting to place my order. What was yours again? A martini?"

"A _dirty_ Martini." Aaron or Alan sort of smiled and leered and Loki sighed inwardly, wondering if he should have just jumped them both back when he was still thrumming with arousal on the dance floor. He felt decidedly sober and uninterested all of a sudden.

"We'll just…" Clint grinned lopsidedly and hooked a thumb over his shoulder as Nat steered him away with a tiny hand at his elbow, fortunately heading in the absolute opposite direction from where Loki's remaining paramour waited.

Loki gave them a tight smile and wave, hoping his awkwardness translated to something like ‘classmates' or ‘co-workers' to his apparently possessive and insecure would-be lover. He turned to finally place their order with the much-overworked bartender.

"Shall we?" he purred to his impatient attendant, trying to recapture the thrill he'd felt before at the idea of taking both him and their new ‘friend' (Luke? Louis?) over to one of the more sheltered spots to let them spread him over the low couches there and do whatever the fuck they wanted to him. 

Soon they crowded together on the very outside edge of the dance floor. Loki leaned against one of the light fixtures that were scattered about the space, beacons of not quite light between the speakers and columns intended to help wary dancers to and from the floor. He drank his drink slowly, toying with them just enough to keep both boys on the hook as he idly considered how the blue light from the broad, sparkling construction at his back made them look both attractive and alien all at once.

Lucas (Luke? Louis?) had just steered Loki back between both he and Aaron/Alan and their exploring hands, and Loki's head tilted back to better allow the doubtless several hickeys he was going to get, going by the wet sounds of Louis/Lucas' mouth beneath his ear, when there was a sudden tug at Loki's elbow.

Opening his eyes, Loki blinked for a minute, not quite able to make out the shape that stood just beside them. The strobing lights from the DJ's podium clashed with the narrow bands and sparkle of the club’s glittering blue lights for a moment before Loki realised who the large shape was. He groaned as he stiffened in his companions’ hold.

"Oh for _God's sake_ , you’re here too now?" he snapped and Steve winced, his face already pulled into a tight, regretful grimace.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted you to know that, well, it’s my fault for showing Tony, but this was _not_ my idea, and also I thought it wasn't fair to not tell you."

"Tell me what?" Loki rasped; all the hair on his arms rose as a shiver ran down his spine with a sense of sudden and impending doom.

Steve's grimace worsened. "Thor," he began, only to be cut off as Tony stepped up beside them, seemingly out of nowhere, and Loki's partners dropped all pretence of dancing to stop, although they did not release their hold on him as they glared at Tony and Steve both.

"We were all over at _Fury's_ , y'know, like normal, when Clint texted Steve, and well, y'know…"

_Dammit, he KNEW he should have told them to keep his presence there to themselves!_

“He texted Steve _what_? To come and save the little schoolboy from the big bad libidinous boys, _hm_?”

Tony cringed. “Actually, it was a pic of you getting your grind on between a hard place and... a hard place, and then a whole bunch of eggplant emoji’s with a ‘You Go Girl’ gif and Steve showed me and I just -- I’m sorry, but I couldn’t -- I _had_ to... because of Thor--”

"What _about_ Thor? Steve said--"

Loki ground to a halt as an unmistakable figure appeared across the room, broad shoulders backlit in blue and gold. He forced his way through the crowd even as they parted about him, likely marvelling at the perfect specimen of both beauty and rage before them as he stalked past.

Weak with defeat, and something perilously close to betrayal, Loki took his remaining few moments to turn and face Stark. " _Why_?" he ground out, anger and frustration making his voice tremble. "When you, of all people, who actually _know_ … How, how _dare_ you do this?"

To his credit, Tony looked briefly ashamed before he squared his shoulders. "It’s _because_ I know, you know? You shouldn't… uh--Not like this, kid. You…you'll thank me, someday."

Loki surged forward, teeth bared, ready to snarl and slash and demand explanations once he'd torn the beard from his supposed friend's traitorous face when Thor met him mid-lunge.

"What are you _doing_ , Loki? What are you--? Leave Stark be. You've no right to be angry with him for exposing your lies!"

Loki continued his forward motion until he was toe to toe with Thor, sneering at Tony over Thor's hunched, tense shoulder. "What I have every _right to_ , is _PRIVACY_ , Thor! I never said to you that I wasn't coming to Midgard. I said I would see you _tomorrow_. That's not a lie, it’s my perfectly natural attempt to have a life that doesn't revolve around YOU."

He stepped back, attempting to smooth himself back into the form that had been shivering with arousal, not rage, only a half hour before. "Oh, just _go away_ , won't you? This isn't your sort of thing, and I've never told you who you can or cannot fuck, so if you or any of your hypocritical little _minions_ try it with me, I promise you won't enjoy the outcome! Come on, you two."

He moved away, dragging his silent, somewhat stiff followers with him by the hands they'd had been thus far unwilling to remove from his hips, and trying to disappear into the heart of the crowd on the dance floor even as he risked a glance back at Thor beneath his lashes, still expecting to be opposed.

Thor had moved after him, but froze mid-step as Steve spoke to him, going by the urgent clasp of his hand at Thor's bicep. Steve's brows drew together as Stark frowned and rocked on his toes, arms crossed over his chest, apparently unhappy with the situation he'd created. Loki felt another sharp sting of hurt. He'd never confirmed Stark's theories, but he'd always thought he _understood_.

Repressing the urge to curl up in a ball and wallow in self-pity, Loki turned in Aaron/Alan's hold and ground his hips back into him as he pulled Louis/Luke in by his shirt.

"Where were we?" he purred, a malicious spike low in his gut as he hoped Thor saw it and hurt the way Loki always had at just the mere thought of him with someone else. He smiled cruelly even as he crashed their mouths together.

Alan/Aaron had one hand up under Loki's shirt, stroking his belly as he sucked on Loki's earlobe ( _meh_ ) and Luke/Louis had just slipped a hand between them to haul Loki closer to him via his ass when Loki found himself unceremoniously yanked from between them.

" _Loki_." Thor seethed, and both of Loki's would-be partners froze as they reached for him.

"B-Boyfriend?" Lucas/Luke squeaked and Loki gave up the idea of getting anywhere in the club that night, with them at least.  He'd heard that tone of awe and terror too many times before when people crossed him, not knowing quite who his back-up was and part of him thrilled to it. The rest of him was sickened as he pushed himself into Thor's face, all but spitting with fury. 

" _Brother_ ," he corrected, growling.

"I would have a word with you," Thor ground out, his focus so solely on Loki's face that he could almost picture the box Thor had mentally put around him to erase his almost-inamoratos from existence, striking Loki as a sexual being from his version of reality as effortlessly as he had yanked him clear of their joint embrace.

"I have quite a few for you myself as it happens, none of them fit for an audience," he snarled, casting an angry look over his shoulder. "Sorry boys. Maybe next time."

Loki pulled away, eyes on where Steve and Tony were still visible near the bar, a flash of red hair beyond signifying yet more of Thor's devotees waiting in the wings. Seizing a handful of Thor's denim jacket to haul him after him, Loki drew Thor further into the darkness.

Loki had scoped out the room upon arrival because it never hurt to know the best hiding places or the fastest escape routes, no matter the event. He’d noted that thanks to the bank of speakers blocking in the dance floor, there was a small, quite nicely lit space just beyond the DJ’s podium, where large light fixtures were flanked by the shining columns, and Loki wanted to hear _and_ see Thor for this, dammit.

Thor jerked his arm away, snarling something Loki couldn't hear but followed him closely, as though the force of his foul mood could not only repel Loki's possible conquests that night but also anyone who might ever want him in the future.

Loki swerved behind the columns and stopped behind the towering, striped block of blue light, turning so quickly that Thor had to draw up short or collide with him, wrong-footed from the start, precisely as he should be. " _What_ ," Loki snarled, all the way into Thor's personal space, fists clenching at his sides, "the _fuck_ is your _problem_ , Thor?"

" _My_ problem?" Thor ground out, automatically reaching out to seize Loki by the shoulders as he'd always done. "My problem is that I was having a perfectly fine night, looking forward to your visit tomorrow even, only to find my friends texting me that you are already here in Midgard and, and--"

"And _WHAT_ , Thor? Clubbing without you? Drinking? Or is the issue that I was out looking to get _fucked_ and your little entourage didn't approve so they summoned you here to publicly humiliate me?"

"Why-- _gods_ Loki," Thor shook him lightly and then released him with a grimace, "--why do you _say_ such things? If anything you've been humiliating yourself. Tony says the photo Clint sent made it look as though you were, you were… and back there, with those wretched... you were acting like-"

"Like what, Thor? For someone identifying as at least a little fucking bi-curious, it's remarkably hypocritical of you if you can't take my grinding on a few men on the bloody dance floor!"

Thor took a step back from him, shaking his head, eyes downcast as he swallowed "No, Loki. It's not that you like men, it's that you, you..." Thor's mouth twisted and the light shimmered over something that looked a little too much like _disgust_ on his face. Loki was furious before he could even finish his sentence. "You're better than this, you act like it's… You looked as though you were _desperate_ for it."

Thor's last few words were barely audible, but Loki caught them, scarcely an inch from Thor's face as he pitched forward, clinging to him by the lapels of his denim jacket, and affected the most lustful, lascivious expression that he could muster past his wrath. He licked his lips ostentatiously as he ground out "Oh, but I _am_ desperate for it Thor, I'm fucking _dying_ for it. I came here because I need it so much. I _need_ cock, Thor. I need it so badly, you've no idea." Thor had already stilled, face stiff with shock as Loki deliberately closed the minute gap, no longer entirely sure what he was doing, his mouth the barest breath from Thor's as he finished, "I'd even take _yours_ right now."

Thor shoved Loki back, as he'd expected, already releasing the grey denim and as he forced a callous laugh to the surface, ready to mock and deride, and anything else necessary to protect himself, when Thor did something Loki wasn't expecting.

He hit him.

Loki's head snapped to the side and pain rushed through his face as the back of Thor's right hand slammed into his cheek. His knuckles bounced off the hollow of Loki's cheekbone and his own hand reached up to touch his smarting skin even before he'd finished rocking back on his heels. Tears of shock and pain stood out in his eyes as he turned back to meet Thor's gaze, the rage there already turning to horror as Loki sprang into motion, _incensed_.

Thor was stepping forwards, both hands uplifted, reaching for where he'd hurt Loki, but he was too slow, having forgotten, it seemed, that in all the years that Thor had chosen team sport after team sport and excelled at all of them, Loki had chosen martial arts.

As Thor came toward him, Loki shifted his weight, so hurt and enraged that he felt his skin might split apart--almost afraid he might simply dissolve into steam, blind fury on the breeze. His right-hand thrust outwards as Thor stepped into range; his breath exploded from him on a battered gasp as Loki's palm struck him directly in the middle of his chest and knocked him back several paces.

Thor choked, visibly winded for a second before his remorse seemed to simply melt away. He stormed forwards again, fuming, and Loki readied himself, prepared to once again protect himself any way he had to. Flexing his sore palm and left fist curled, ready to strike again if need be, Loki snarled as Thor's hand closed about his throat, bearing him back until he hit the breadth of the Plexiglas. Thor closed on him fast, too fast to think about retaliating, too fast to fight him off, too late to do anything but desperately try to breathe, as Thor slammed their mouths together.

It took him a second, just one brief, blank second of un-reality, wondering if he was actually awake or possibly insane, before Loki actually realised what was happening.

_Thor was kissing him._

Loki surged upward, one hand clawing over and around Thor's shoulders, the other spearing into his hair, destroying his ordered ponytail as Loki used his grip to drag Thor's head down, biting at his lips, snarling into the kiss to disguise the pitiful whimper that spilt out of him, helpless as Thor thrust his tongue into his mouth.

He didn't know what to do. He was bewildered, furious and _ecstatic_ ; he was reasonably sure he was going to tear apart at the seams at any moment but Loki would sooner die than stop kissing Thor, would sooner kill Thor than _let_ him stop.

Releasing his neck, Thor pushed his fingers into Loki's long, dark hair, using his grip to turn his face away, and surprised a startled, whimpered negation from Loki's mouth. The sound quickly guttered into a moan and his hips hitched into Thor's as Thor crushed him back against the light and bit at the hinge of Loki's jaw. His teeth skittered across his skin and sucked frenzied kisses down the length of Loki's bared throat.

" _Fuck_ …" The music soared upward, building to its crescendo, the DJ seemingly determined that this track be the loudest and best of the whole night, and Loki could feel the pounding of the bass reverberating through the shimmering plastic at his back as he thrashed and pushed at Thor, shoving him back just to drag him close once more.

Thor's hips stuttered and a thigh shoved between Loki's as he knocked his legs apart. His other arm was tight around Loki's waist, crushed between him and the light fixture. Thor pulled him tighter, frantic as he twisted to seal their mouths together again, furious and filthy, moaning deep in his throat as Loki nipped and sucked at his mouth savagely in turn.

Loki ran one hand down the rolling, shifting hitch of Thor's spine until he reached his ass, grabbed a handful and hauled him forward at the same time. He grunted, whining as their crashing, rocking rut against each other shifted closer, into something sinuous as he all but rode Thor's thigh, writhing against the ridge of Thor's denim-trapped erection.

Thor grunted and wrenched Loki's head back hard with one hand, his other on Loki's sternum as he shoved him hard against the Plexiglas. His lip curled as he looked down between their torsos, past Loki's heaving chest, to where his pelvis plunged and bucked against Thor's.

"So _desperate_ ," he sneered, lurching back in to press a punishing kiss against Loki's mouth, so hard that Loki thought he tasted blood for a moment. Thor moved the hand on Loki's chest down and around to the small of his back to crush Loki's aching, confined cock to his.

Thor released his hold to shove him back again as Loki whined low in his throat even as he bared his teeth at Thor, mindlessly turned on. Bloodlust and naked want feuded deep in his bones as he stared upwards, his shoulders against the plastic as Thor braced an arm on either side of his head, licking his lower lip as Loki fought the urge to beg the smug, _beautiful_ bastard.

"Will nothing but _this_ ," Thor jeered, rolling their hips together as he held Loki's gaze, and caught the exhaled sob Loki tried to swallow back, going by the arrogant flare of his nostrils, "satisfy you, then?"

"Satisfaction's not in my nature," Loki drawled derisively, panting. His lips were raw from the scratch of Thor's beard. His fist jerked at Thor’s denim lapel again while his other rode around Thor's waist and slithered up under his t-shirt to scrape blunt nails across his belly. Loki's teeth flashed in momentary triumph at Thor's grunt, gasping then as one hand left the glowing glass to seize his throat once more and drag him close.

Thor growled against his lips, " _Surrender's not in mine_."

Loki keened into the snarl pressed suddenly tight into his mouth, sucking and gasping, taking fistfuls of Thor's t-shirt as though climbing him might somehow get them closer yet. Thor squeezed his throat once, thrillingly rather than threateningly, and ran his clawed fingertips down Loki's chest before, swerving to grip his hip and jerk him harder into the jut and shove of him.

The heat of Thor, the relentless jab and twist of his hips as he panted into Loki's mouth sent a spiral of something dark and delicious through Loki's veins, a goose-pimpled shiver that started at the base of his spine as he tore his mouth from Thor's. He turned his head away for just a second, needing to catch his breath, to shift his balance… _to concentrate on not coming all over himself before he'd had his fill of the feast, dammit._

Thor chuckled nastily and sucked and then bit sharply at Loki's earlobe (and why was that so hot when he did it but not Aaron/Alan). "Oh dear--is it too much for you?"

Loki scowled and darted his head sideways to nip the inside of the forearm Thor still had braced about him. He smirked as Thor hissed, hips jabbing into him at the quick pain, and Loki locked his knees, almost lightheaded at the particular, sudden need that slammed through him. He let the Plexiglas take his full weight as he leaned back, abruptly still, and waited.

Thor noticed his lack of participation straight away, his smug smile firmly in place as he stared at Loki, who just stood there, breathing hard but otherwise unmoving, with one hand at Thor's waistband and one still closed tight in the now stretched out material of his t-shirt.

"Too _much_ for me?" Loki scoffed, breathless but utterly self-assured. "I think not, but why don't we find out, hm?" He bit his lip, eyes unblinking as he held Thor's gaze. His thumb twisted nimbly downward as he turned his wrist and neatly popped the button at Thor's fly open. Thor froze and-- unwilling to accept a possible surrender for the first time in his life--Loki doubled down, his lashes low as he smiled hotly down to where his fingers now carefully lowered the zipper,

He licked his lips and laughed softly, cruelly, as he matched Thor's gaze again with a mocking purr. "Oh dear, too much for _you_ , is it?"

_I dare you, come on you utter, utter bastard, I bloody DARE you._

Thor's free hand jerked away from where it had been resting at Loki's waist to twist itself into his hair, pulling hard. Tears pricked at Loki's eyes as Thor leaned in, his touch-paper temper gloriously apparent as he vibrated in place, and spoke through his teeth. "I think _not_ ," he ground out furiously, "but why don't _we find out_ , hm?"

And, steering him forcefully down by way of his fisted hand in Loki's hair, Thor pushed him to his knees.

_Oh yes, oh FUCK yes!_

Loki's hands--shaking, _greedy_ \--were already on Thor's hips, one moving to peel apart the dark denim placket as far as possible. The other was ( _oh god_ ) already cupping the heft of him, his eyes up, unable to look away from the reflective, stunned blue of Thor's as Loki adjusted the weight of his cock in his underwear so that it stood upright, ready to spill outwards with just a touch.

He wanted to look, to put on a show, but he couldn't seem to break Thor's abruptly almost frightened-looking stare, something shivery and tender dampening his eyes as he swallowed. One hand was still braced on the light fixture and the other trembled in Loki's hair, watching with his lips parted--expression almost painfully disbelieving--as Loki leaned in blindly, deft fingers hooking the waistband of his boxers down just far enough to press a smiling, shaky kiss to the damp head of Thor's cock.

Thor leaned his face against his bicep and _groaned_ , muffling the hitch of Loki's whimper. He used Thor's briefly averted face as time to close his eyes, still blind to his bounty as he mouthed at the petal-soft skin, the hot tang of pre-come searing his tongue as he suckled and lapped, closing his lips over the glans for an endless, _perfect_ second before forcing himself to relinquish it, pulling back, eyes upward.

"Too much?" he taunted, throaty with promise, waiting for the goaded huff, the flash of Thor's gritted teeth as he turned back to glare down at Loki, his lips parting to retort even as Loki answered for him. "I thought not," he husked and, slipping his fingers around Thor's notorious girth, he hefted the full length of his cock out into the light.

_Fuck_. 

Loki had almost convinced himself he'd imagined its gorgeousness over the years. 

Loki himself was nothing to sneeze at, delighted by his own elegant length (decidedly above average and surpassing Sandu's in every respect, not that he'd been keeping score mind you) but the vision of erect loveliness in his memory had seemed too much, too _perfect_ to exist for all Stark had confirmed it with his drunken, boastful wittering.

Thor wasn't built like the more ridiculously attributed, almost _elephantine_ porn stars he'd seen (though Loki certainly favoured porn stars who were built like Thor), but he was more than Loki had ever seen in person. It wasn’t just how achingly long he was, he was seriously _thick_ as well, easily more than the standard handful, Loki’s long fingers only just meeting around it’s girth and Loki swallowed a whine, oddly disappointed because he apparently wouldn't be swallowing anything else any time soon.

_Oh, what I could do with time and practice enough._

He allowed the hunger to linger on his face, the promise of future deep-throating that he would never be able, never be _permitted_ to give being shoved back behind the wall of want that towered over all sense of reason and foreboding as he concentrated on _here_ and _now_ and the thick, hot weight in his grasp.

He pumped the shaft slowly, once, then twice, not for Thor's pleasure but for the joyful possessiveness that came of having his hands on him, acquainting himself with every last inch of him. He twisted to dip just beneath it, jerking it slightly faster, harder, as he tilted his face beneath it to place a close-lipped kiss sideways where Thor's glorious width flared out behind his glans, before opening his lips to cradle the weight of him, tongue already lapping at the hard flesh resting there.

Thor shifted, wetting his lips, Loki's name a whisper between them, only recognised as his mouth shaped the word as Loki watched. Thor leaned his forehead against the glass, his forearm braced fully there to hold him as he shook, utterly still even as his dick twitched and his fingers trembled at the back of Loki's crown.

The thought that he might be breaking Thor forever surfaced for the barest second before it was ruthlessly crushed down by all the already broken shards of Loki's existence. He clung tight to the knowledge that it had been Thor who had kissed _him_ , Thor who bore him downwards rather than secede, Thor who, for all the bright vulnerability in his eyes, watched him now as though Loki had hung the moon and stars.

Bracing his knees better against the floor (toppling over with a mouth full of cock was a graceless, dangerous, beginners mistake, after all) Loki lifted the hand that had been placed covetously at the side of Thor's groin and moved it to settle over Thor's where it rested, loosely now, shaking, at the back of Loki’s head. 

Thor blinked at him, something apologetic in his eyes even as he shuddered, and Loki pivoted to close his mouth over the leaking head once more, sucking hard for the joy of Thor's precome flowing across his tongue, his fingers hooked under Thor's as Loki lifted his hand from his hair.

Tensing, Thor made to pull his hand back, probably assuming that Loki must not care to have people tugging at his hair or steering his head with his mouth rammed full of their cock (and were he anyone else he'd have been _right_ ), only to find Loki pushing his palm against his cheek. 

The broad span of Thor's hand moved automatically to curl his fingers under his jawline, his thumb stroking tenderly over Loki's cheekbone. Loki blinked up at him, giddy and oxygen-starved before he'd really even got going, holding Thor's worshipful gaze and trying to convey everything he could never allow himself to say as he sank lower, his mouth as open as he could get it, and ever so slightly turned his head.

He was drooling, he knew he was, the few inches Loki had managed to cram in of Thor's delicious thickness more than he'd ever had or practised with, so he knew that his usually effortless performances would do him no good in this instance. Loki found he didn't give so much as a single, solitary fuck as Thor's eyes both glazed and sharpened all in just a few seconds, his focus on the slick soft heat of the insides of Loki's mouth enveloping his cockhead, unable to tear his gaze from where the head of his prick distended Loki's cheek, obscene and literally everything Loki had ever dreamt of.

" _Loki_ …" Thor choked, his thumb rubbing over the lines of his cockhead, trapped in the wet, sucking heat of Loki's mouth and Loki hummed, affecting a tone of polite enquiry as he batted his lashes at Thor. His lips twisted, as close as he could get to a wicked grin as Thor's eyes rolled back in his head at the vibration, his own hips jerking as Thor's spasmed, another inch or so pushing forward past his lips.

"Oh, _sorry_ , gods, Loki, sorry…" He stammered and Loki dropped his hand from Thor's to squeeze at his own trapped length, jerking fitfully at both the shove and taste of Thor in his mouth as well as for the stutter, the contrition sharp on Thor's dismayed face as Loki pulled off, his grin bright and dangerous with delight and lust combined.

"Don't," he husked, voice already rusty with just the desire to swallow Thor down, his fingers curling rhythmically about the ridge in his jeans, "be daft."  Holding Thor's gaze as best he could, he opened his lips and sank down Thor's length until his eyes watered, jaw already aching with the effort of keeping his teeth from Thor's skin, and began to bob.

Thor's expression was gratifying, to say the least, although it did decidedly endanger Loki's trousers with what felt like a torrent of pre-ejaculate that seeped from him as his hips twitched in time with his hand. He was initially frustrated by how few inches he could cover by comparison to his desire to have his nose butted up against the short, crinkled golden hair Loki could feel each time his hand slid backwards from his lips, trying to make up the distance even as he noticed Thor's dropped jaw.

_Oh._

It had never occurred to him (despite that stupid game back at the Wakandan campus) that Thor might never have had a blowjob that covered as much as Loki was currently managing. He'd only managed to get about five-ish inches down, Thor's girth as great a curse to inexperience as his length would be to countless others, but Loki had always prided himself on his head-giving skills. If Thor was going to keep staring at him like a python steadily swallowing him whole then _by god_ he was going to get more of him down.

Flattening his tongue against the underside and trying to let as much saliva pool in his mouth as possible, Loki sank down again, but instead of rising, he further widened his jaw. Something like a cramp threatened deep in the hinge as pain sparked there almost immediately, but he ignored it, gently swaying his head from side to side as he pushed forward, closing his eyes to hide the tears prickling there.

It didn't hurt, precisely, but it wasn't comfortable, harking back to Loki's days of choking down his own sex toys, determined to not be caught unready. It was, however, worth every ache and flare of discomfort for Thor's drawn-out shaky groan of disbelief, his trembling fingers tracing Loki's lips outlined about his flesh, stroking under his jaw as though he could feel where he had sunk deeper into his mouth.

_Loki had a flash, a reality playing before his mind's eye where he had the time to spend weeks--laughing and pouting as Thor would chide him for trying too much at once--learning every last centimetre of Thor's body and Thor learning his, a world where he had practised enough to take all of Thor, where Thor took everything he was in turn and held him close, infinitely precious and HIS…_

Pulling back, Loki gasped, tears in his eyes for more than just the weight of Thor encroaching on his gag reflex. He ran his tongue along the underside in one long, breathless stroke, his hand coming up to bump against his lips, twisting just behind the head. Loki panted, kissing messily at the tip as he opened his eyes to meet Thor's once more.

An unsteady thumb moved to trace one of the tears that streaked down over Loki's skin as Thor's hot hand cupped his cheek. Thor spread his fingers to just thread into the hair at Loki’s temple, his mouth moving, the words too soft for Loki to make out, but he smiled all the same. Thor's feverish, euphoric expression more than filled in the gaps.

He gave himself a heavy-handed squeeze, bucking slightly, then again, harder, when Thor's gaze darkened further as he watched, his teeth flashing as an approving rumble made its way past the thrumming, constant beat of the speakers behind them. Loki reached up to grip the still mostly taut denim at Thor's hip, twisting a fist into it as he held Thor's gaze meaningfully and tugged him forward.

Thor locked his knees, something cautious in the way he clenched his jaw as he obeyed the pull of Loki's hand. His hips thrust forward slowly as Loki held his hand in place, unmoving, as Thor's cock slid first through his fist and then into the warm, wet cradle of his lips, and then back again. Loki pushed at Thor’s hips before pulling at them again near immediately, his eyes twinkling at Thor as he waited for him to take the hint.

His eyes clenched shut, Thor groaned, loud enough for Loki to hear past the music as he turned his face to hide in his forearm again. His body tilted more heavily against the glass than it had been to start, not quite doubled over as Thor braced himself, bent, but still desperate to watch, already turning back to gaze, slack-jawed, and panting as he allowed his hips to move forward and back, gently but unmistakably fucking Loki's hand and face.

Loki trembled, translating the shiver into action as it coursed through his lips onto Thor's rigid dick, lapping and sucking harder at those first, few glorious inches as they slipped in and out of his hungry mouth. He released Thor's hip, whimpering, able to feel the blood burning in his cheeks as it rushed through him in thick, aching eddies. His hand dropped back to squeeze at his own dick, twitching and leaking copiously if the feel of his jeans was anything to go by, matching the steadily increasing, smooth pace of Thor sliding back and forth across his tongue, whimpering as he saw Thor watching him, his cock jabbing harder in approval.

He was _close_ , embarrassingly so. Loki hadn't come just from blowing someone in the longest time. For all he loved the deed itself, it took a lot for him to be so lost in the feel and pleasure of it that he didn't require the added stimulus of someone's hand or mouth upon him. But now, here, on his knees before Thor, both of them bathed in eerie blue light, Thor's eyes and focus entirely upon him, hard and wanting, wanting _Loki,_ and somehow it wasn't just enough, it was very nearly too much, determined as he was to make Thor come first.

Thor moved, his hand dropping low to trace Loki’s lips, his fingertips grazing his length as it slid in and out of Loki's mouth, biting his own lip as he stroked the hollows of Loki's cheeks, the tear trails glistening in the light.  He slowly slid his hand around, tiny strands of Loki's hair caught between his fingers, little bolts of pain that made Loki keen harder as Thor's hand found its place once more, resting at the back of his skull.

Loki swallowed, unaccountably overcome as Thor raised a questioning brow and gently-- _ever so gently_ \--urged Loki's head forward in time with the thrust of Thor's hips, taking control of the blowjob in a way that Loki had never allowed _anyone_ before. 

He let Thor steer him forward as he fucked his mouth slightly deeper, and slightly harder on every stroke, and Loki shuddered visibly, moaning as long and as loudly as he could to convey his entirely enthusiastic consent. His vision was blurring around the edges now as he started rolling his palm harder against himself, desperate for the dexterity to free himself and spill all over the toes of Thor's precious boots. 

Loki settled instead for rocking his hips harder and faster against his hand, panting over the slick, red head of Thor's cock on every stroke against his lips, keening and _desperate_ \--just as desperate as Thor had initially thought him, unknowingly desperate for this very moment--as he hummed and whimpered into the warm, wet collision of his fist against his lips, wishing for greater finesse as he felt Thor's cock jerking in his grasp, close, _so close_ …

" _Fuck…Loki_ …" Thor gasped, the shape of the words visible but unheard over the new song, crashing and reverberating through the Plexiglas. Loki felt Thor’s grip on his hair tighten, seemingly trying to pull him back, and Loki _glared_ , accusing Thor of robbing him of his prize as he sucked harder, leaned closer, fighting for more of him as he twitched and spasmed in the hot clench of his lips.

It occurred to Loki (several minutes too late to care) that he had never actually had an unwrapped prick in his mouth before and that if Thor came in him, then he would have to spit or swallow (or very likely choke considering that this would be a genuine first for him). For just a fraction of a second then, Loki considered pulling off, pondering the possibility of giving Thor his face, or just letting it spatter and glisten on the gleaming blue wall behind him.

_Fuck NO, I want to taste him._

The thought of his mouth being overwhelmed by the force of Thor coming across his tongue nearly broke Loki. His hips jerked forward without his control, forcing him to lift his hand from his own desperate hardness to steady himself as he rocked. Thor's cock skittered across his cheek as it missed its mark and Loki took his opportunity. Tightening his clasp about the head as he drew it back before his lips, Loki let Thor see the _need_ in him as he gazed upwards, pleading gently as he kissed the head,

" _Please_ , Thor…?"

Something slightly too close to reverence crossed Thor's face as Loki slipped the same lips that had just begged him back over his length, the adoration burning away into a different expression entirely, a sort of impure worship as Loki sucked hard at the corona. He ducked his head in time with Thor's renewed thrusts, moaning in bliss as he felt another inch slide down, certain now that _no one_ had ever taken as much of Thor as _he_ had.

Thor said something--his tone urgent, Loki's name perhaps--but Loki couldn't hear him past the rushing in his ears, over the ragged pants of his breath between each slurp and suck. His message only became apparent as Thor's grip tightened in his hair, stilling Loki even as Thor's hips snapped suddenly harder, clumsily as he tensed and shook.

_Oh_ , Loki thought. 

Suddenly there was a burst of thick, salty slickness in his mouth--too much, too much for the space with Thor's cock already filling him. Thor's come spilled from the corners of Loki's mouth as he gasped and swallowed. He bobbed still, chasing Thor's cock for every last drop as his erratic thrusting made it hard to keep to their rhythm and Loki whined, high and embarrassing, but he didn't _care_. Ignoring Thor's shiver and flinch, he sucked _harder_ , delighted with his trophy even as his brain still fought to allocate the taste somewhere between salty, bitter, and _wonderful._

He opened his eyes (not having realised he'd shut them, furious with himself for having missed Thor's face as he came…came into _Loki's mouth_ , fuck, fuck, _fuck)_ and looked up. Thor's hips were finally stilling their jittery, ragged thrusts, just the tip resting on Loki's mouth as the final few spurts crested over his tongue, Thor's face completely flushed as he panted, his face smashed against the Plexiglas.

Loki smiled. 

He couldn't help it. 

Thor--red and sweaty and breathless--was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Heaving a long breath, and chuckling as he wiped his brow against his bicep, Thor smiled back before his eyes narrowed suddenly at where Loki absently rubbed the heel of his hand against the sticky fabric of his groin.

Loki didn't have more than the second it took to frown quizzically before Thor was hauling him upwards. Thor’s hand at Loki’s crown was clamped solidly about the back of his neck now, and Loki teetered as he leaned back, Thor’s bracing arm now steering Loki by his elbow until he was standing once again, his back pressed against the glass, Thor pressed against him. 

He cupped Loki's face, staring wordlessly as his eyes roved over Loki's shaky smile and swollen lips, lingering on the sticky trails thickening at the edge of his chin, gaze dark, hot, and _covetous_ before he lunged forward, tasting the skin he'd made messy before slamming their mouths together once more.

Loki hadn't known you could miss someone's kiss before.

It had been bare minutes since their mouths had parted and Loki's had been anything but unoccupied in the time since but _gods_ he'd missed the feel of Thor's mouth on his. Their kisses seemed to have lost all restraint now, as Thor lapped the come from the inside of Loki's mouth, intrusive, deep stabs of his tongue chasing his own seed around Loki's teeth. 

Twining his own tongue around Thor's as best he could, all Loki could do was cling and whimper, whining for release as he bucked and ground against Thor's hip, Thor’s own slowly slackening, spit-slick cock pressing into Loki's thigh.

Thor pulled back, their lips separating with a short, slippery sound and Loki sobbed a swift refusal, trying to reconnect their mouths even as Thor kissed his way across his cheek to his ear.

"Don't worry," he panted, a large hand abruptly laid atop Loki's poor neglected erection and, _squeezing_. "I've got you." 

Then he slanted his lips back over Loki's, his palm flexing hard against the trapped, almost painful head of his cock and Loki's world went white.

He wondered in some distant part of his brain if perhaps he should be embarrassed, coming like a thirteen-year-old discovering their first porn stash the very second Thor's hands were upon him. The rest of him remembered how desperately he'd wanted him from the first moment Thor had thrown him against the Plexiglas, how he'd almost swallowed his own tongue with bliss the second he'd realised that Thor was coming in his mouth… In hindsight it was remarkable he'd lasted this long.

Loki shuddered, his fingers clutching and releasing Thor's shirt with each pulse, dizzy in Thor's arms as he mewled and keened against his lips, gasping as he sagged against him, the white mist over Loki’s mind dissipating into the blue light reflected back at him in Thor's smile.

"Mm," Thor hummed, his voice deeper than usual by an octave or so, as delight and smugness warred for control of his expression, "that looked like it felt good."

Loki pressed his forehead to Thor's, his eyes slipping shut as he exhaled, trembling. "I believe that may well be the understatement of the century… you vainglorious _git._ "

An amused rumble preceded another hot, unhurried kiss as Thor squeezed Loki again through his trousers, eliciting several aftershocks of pleasure and a tiny jolt of almost pain. Loki whined in Thor's clasp, shifting and trying to dislodge him even as he clung tighter, his clenched fists stretching Thor's t-shirt beyond all recognition, needy as he came back to earth in sluggish, sated stages.

There was a sudden chasm in the air about them, the absence of music almost more overpowering than the constant pounding beat that had thrummed through them both en route from rage to bliss and Loki swayed, unbalanced without the wall of sound to hide their desperate, ragged gasps against each other. Thor steadied him with an arm about Loki’s hips as he placed a palm back against the light, smiling as he nuzzled Loki's cheek. Thor’s tone was teasing as he murmured, softly now, in the abrupt gap between tracks, "Easy, brother. I've got you, remember?"

_Brother._

Bile rose from his belly and Loki ground his eyes shut as though blocking out the light might somehow force back the realisation of what he'd done.

_He’d broken Thor… oh, gods… he’d broken the only good thing left in the world._

Loki lifted both hands to push at Thor's shoulders, averting his eyes from Thor's tolerantly amused expression, clearly awaiting some sort of punchline to Loki's sudden need for distance between them. Loki used said distance to step sideways, free of the sparkling blue light, his back to the dark reality of a bleak, empty universe awaiting his overdue decision to the right thing. 

_Thor will hate you forever for this… you infuriated him into hatefucking you… you turned his boundless, perfect, fraternal love into a backroom facefuck… he'll sober up and hate you… he'll come down from this and hate you… he'll never know you're not his brother and he'll hate you… he'll guess now that you aren't his brother, you never were, and he'll hate you, he'll hate you, he'll hate you…_

"Loki?" 

Loki's eyes darted back to Thor's, brain still scrambling for a solution and unable to find one past the mess he'd made, the line he'd drawn in the sand just a blur now as the waves crashed down and Loki couldn't see his way clear to save himself.

_"Loki?"_  

Thor made to step toward him, hand already reaching to draw him close once more and Loki stepped out of reach, ignoring the spike of pain that rammed itself through his chest at the bewildered frown that pulled Thor's brows together.

"I--" Loki cut himself off, oddly certain he might cry if he continued that sentence ( _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I love you_ ), stiffening his shoulders and his resolve as one as he shook his head, his expression clear, empty of regret or remorse, blank as he cleared his throat. "--this isn't what brothers do, Thor." 

He stepped back again quickly, partly to stop himself from hurling himself at Thor to wipe the dumbstruck look of hurt and horror away, and partly to stay outside of his reach as Thor made to move forward again.

"You might want to… straighten up a bit … before you risk the dance floor again," he said shortly, eyes on where Thor's cock still hung from his open trousers and Thor flinched, looking down as Loki had hoped and, with those few seconds of grace, he disappeared.

Disappearing was a lot more work than Sandu always made it appear, but Loki made up for his lack of natural ability in that area with cunning and forethought. 

The hidey-hole he'd dragged Thor to was behind the DJ's platform. Thor had entered from the bar and Loki had taken him from the edge, through the crowd, past the DJ to their own little spot, so it was logical he would take the same route back in pursuit of him. This was precisely the reason why Loki ducked around their light fixture, moving only just far enough into the darkness for Thor to lose him in his momentary distraction. 

Loki looped back around the pillars, scrabbling to free his phone from the bottom of his pocket and mentally bid farewell to the perfectly lovely jacket he'd left at the coat check. He bit his tongue against a cry; longing, agony and regret fighting for his soul as Thor stormed past, unaware that Loki stood just feet away, his heart still beating by force of stubbornness alone, hidden in the shadows. He waited for Thor to round the next set of pillars before he set off back past the site of his former happiness.

His thumb skated across his phone's screen, unlocking it and bringing up the _Uber_ app. Thanking every lucky star in the sky (the ones not currently shitting on his broken heart anyway) for finding a driver less than 3 minutes away, likely having only just dropped someone off along the strip of clubs and bars that populated this part of town. Loki straightened himself up as best he could. He hoped like hell that the come that was slowly and less than comfortably sticking him to his boxers wasn't as visible as it felt, and let himself through the door behind the main stage marked _Staff Only_.

It revealed a corridor with several doorways leading off it, store and staff rooms and the like, he assumed, but he didn't care, not when there, at the very end of the hallway, was the exact thing he was looking for. He shot along the hall, dimly hearing someone shout something from within a stale cigarette-scented space, reaching the loading bay doors at the same moment a voice close to him cried, "Oi, you can't be down here!"

"Thank you," he ground out, smiling dangerously for anyone foolish enough to be close enough to witness it. "I'm aware." Then he pushed down on the crash bar and stepped out into the night.

He could almost have wept with relief.

He needed to get home. He could pack everything and be out of the house before his parents knew a thing. He could be gone before Thor could tell them, before Thor _knew_ …

Loki stalked swiftly down the alley that led from the rear of the club and intersected with the main block several doors down from the main entrance. He checked the train timetable app and cursed under his breath as he stepped out onto the street, his eyes already fixed on the acid green Nissan slowly headed towards the club. He waved his phone at it to halt them at the curbside.

"I'm Loki," he barked at them as he paused by the driver’s open window, thankful for once for a name not easily mistaken for anyone else's as the guy nodded, content to have found his rider, "My train leaves in twenty minutes and it's the only one before tomorrow morning."

He broke off, frozen and horrified, swallowing, and wished he'd just got into the car as Stark and Steve stared openly at him from several metres down the street. He only realised what he was doing as Tony's jaw dropped wide, the back of Loki's hand subconsciously dragged across his lips, guilty under their matched, horrified gazes. 

Loki wrenched the car door open so fast it struck him in the shin; he staggered as he climbed hastily into the backseat. "Please," he resumed, panting from stress and pain combined, his heart rate rising rapidly as he half-expected Stark to charge the car and attempt to hold him in place for Thor's wrath. "I need to be on a train in twenty minutes, it's an emergency."

His driver blinked at him. "It’s a twenty-five-minute drive most nights, bud, I don't see how--"

Loki snatched his phone up, gesticulating frankly for them to get going already even as his fingers flew across the screen. "There. I've just tipped you $200. If you get me there in time to make that train I'll make it a grand, sound fair?"

His driver blinked some more before jerking himself bolt upright. "For $1000 I'll get you there in fifteen," he vowed. Loki slumped back against the seat and steadfastly didn't look as they shot past the club, closing his eyes as the car gained speed, and hoped with everything he had that he could outrun his self-inflicted bad luck for just long enough.


	14. Part Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a large chapter because... reasons.

**Part 14:**

He made the train with two minutes to spare.

Tipping Victor his justly deserved $1000, Loki staggered through the ticket booths and onto the train, then collapsed onto a seat in an almost empty carriage and buried his head in his hands.

He'd done it, the one thing he'd told himself he mustn't _ever_ do, not if he wanted to keep Thor.

_He felt sick--he WAS sick--felt like he'd somehow groomed Thor to want him back just by the sheer force of how badly he'd wanted him first, imprinting his love into his very skin each time they’d slept all tangled together until Thor had mistaken the love filling his veins for his own feelings. Eventually, he'd fight past it, see the virus for what it was, see Loki for who he was, not his brother but too much so to be a lover, too much a lover now to ever be a brother again…_

Taking long, juddering breaths through his fingers, Loki forced himself to quieten, fighting the panic down until it was just a shifting roil of despair and sorrow in the pit of his stomach as he reviewed his remaining option.

He had to _run_.

It was all he had left, but really, he'd been ready to run for a while now. 

Each day he’d expected that his parents would finally decide to tell him the truth; that he wasn't theirs and that's why they'd always treated him so differently from Thor, because if they'd truly loved him, truly wanted him then they would have been treated the same, wouldn't they? And then he'd go.

But recently he'd started to think that perhaps he could keep Thor, had been all but convinced of it, in fact. He’d been persuaded by Thor's stubborn, unshakeable love and it hurt ( _oh god it hurt SO MUCH_ ) to think that it was because of his own ridiculous lack of willpower that he'd lost him now. He'd goaded him, all but tricked him… oh, gods, Thor must be _furious_ by now.

Loki swallowed. He'd turned off his phone during his Uber journey, reactivating it long enough to pay his driver and buy his ticket before turning it off once more, but he'd seen the voicemail symbol flashing, imagined he had an inbox full to the brim of rage by this point.

He had over an eight-hour lead courtesy of the lack of trains between Asgard and Midgard. Loki would be home in the early hours but Thor--should he be enraged enough to give chase--couldn't get a train until 8am at the earliest, not arriving until midday and giving Loki more than enough time to get home, pack some things, and leave.

He felt a pang at the thought of never returning, never to sit with his mother in her rose garden for afternoon tea anymore, never to stand in the doorway of his father's oak-lined study and wish for just an iota of the strength that seemed to radiate from him. He had money, of course, had been earning his own money writing reports and faking ID’s forever now and syphoning a little from his accounts to a suitcase at the back of his closet since February, but where would he go?

_He didn't want to run, didn't want to go where Thor wouldn't follow--assuming of course that Thor wouldn't be thrilled by his absence, free of the sickness poisoning their family--but he literally didn't know what else to do. Loki couldn't, just could NOT be there to see Thor tell their mother what he'd done, couldn't stand to see Thor's face as they told him it was all right, it wasn't like he'd ever actually been anything to him anyway…_

Loki rested his forehead against the cold glass, exhausted beyond words. Rain lashed the window as he bit down on the sobs that rose up in his throat. Trying to force himself to sleep, Loki crossed his arms tight against his torso and pretended he wasn't trying to imagine it was Thor holding him close, telling him not to cry, that he would always be there, that it would all be ok.

_Don't worry, I've got you._

And so, curled up against the window, Loki, very quietly, cried himself to sleep.

++

The rain escorted him home, cascading in sheets down the sides of his train carriage the closer they got to Asgard, sailing into the station a full half hour early, several stops having been cancelled due to the downpour.

Loki let himself into his childhood home at just after four am. He was soaked from just the dash from the cab to the door, irritated as he attempted to flick the kitchen lights on, thirsty for iced tea to rinse the taste of bile and sadness from his mouth, forced to walk carefully to the fridge, arms outstretched, as the lights remained stubbornly off. He hissed several choice swear words as he opened the fridge, its lack of light and hum finally penetrating past the fog of misery settled over him.

_A power cut, of course._  

The rain lashed the windows ferociously, wind whipping it hard against the sides of the house, and he sighed, recalling the severe weather warnings they’d all been braced for that week. It was a tremendous feeling, knowing he needed to pack his most necessary possessions in the dark with the storm descending upon him like the wrath of a righteous god, judging him for his many misdeeds. 

Loki’s mouth twisted humourlessly. It was difficult to feel sorry for himself when he knew himself to be the villain of the piece, grateful then, as he made his way through the grand, marble hallway, for the looming clouds and darkness. 

He didn’t know if he could have borne meeting his own gaze in the giant ornate mirror his mother had lovingly placed at the foot of the stairs.

He walked the path to his room on silent feet, the route so familiar that he could have done it with his eyes closed, the limited light no more a challenge than placing his feet upon only the boards he could trust to not creak that late at night. It wasn’t that his parents would be listening out for him, (they didn’t expect him until Sunday, after all) but he just couldn’t risk a run-in with them, at least not without a shower first.

Peeling himself from his stiffly sticky, somewhat revolting, underwear and trousers should have been amusing, triumphal even. Instead, the remainder of his night’s activities, so crudely smeared within the confines of his clothing (and in what felt like tiny, caked trails beneath his chin) was like a fine blade twisting between his ribs each time he’d shifted in the past few hours, unable to forget no matter how hard he tried.

Loki showered, only remembering, as yet more cold water poured over him, that the water heater was electric and that the oh so handy hot water on demand that he was used to, would now be decidedly absent until the power came back on. So he stood and scrubbed himself in the cold and dark and used it as an excuse to tremble, steeling his resolve as he did so, readying himself to leave the shower, dry himself, pack and leave.

He stood, shivering, and regarded his bed with longing as distant lightning moving closer, silhouetting the rain against his bed, his inviting, cosy sheets so alluring that he decided that it couldn’t hurt to just lie down for just a little while. He could afford to curl up and warm himself, rest until 6 or so, and then leap into action. The previous few months of weekends up at Midgard ( _don’t think about him, don’t think about him_ ) had proved that Loki could pack both swiftly and well when motivated and he was just so _tired…_

And so, rummaging blindly in the drawers next to his bed, Loki found a dry pair of boxers, forced them up his still-damp legs and crawled, weary and heartsick, into bed.

_Two hours. He could afford to rest for two hours…_

++

He woke, not quite twenty minutes later.

The rain roared and crashed against the windows, a steady, constant drumming that had been there when Loki had closed his eyes. Now his heart raced as he lay there, unsure of what had woken him, ears pricked for the smallest sound past the wail and blow of the storm outside, a car idling nearby, now driving away, a roll of thunder much closer than it had been before, _a creak of the floorboards out on the landing_ …

Loki’s eyes shot open and he rolled onto his back, watching in what felt like slow motion as his bedroom door swung slowly inward, the many windows of the main landing backlighting the form standing in his doorway, and Loki was _afraid._

It was Thor. Of course it was Thor--Loki would know his shape anywhere--but never before had Loki noted his strength, his _size,_ and feared it might be used against him. Never before had Thor stood so _still_ , so silent in the darkness, a vengeful shadow come to claim his soul.

_It’s too late, it’s happened, he really does hate me now._

Lightning flashed then, over-bright and almost scalding in its intensity, the thunder following so closely behind it that it was as though the storm were resting directly on the roof above them. Loki all but swallowed his tongue at the look on Thor’s face.

“ _Thor…_ ” Loki whispered, almost silent beneath the crash and roar, and threw himself from the bed, only partway across the distance to him before Thor caught him in his arms.

Thor looked utterly destroyed, his spirit apparently dashed upon the jagged rocks that had been only Loki’s fate until now. He was drenched, dripping all down Loki’s back as he leaned their foreheads together, speaking rapidly, raggedly, inaudible against the rain and storm beyond, pressing soft shivery kisses anywhere he could reach between words and Loki groaned, relief and disbelief warring for possession of him as he hauled Thor’s mouth to his.

_He doesn’t hate me, he doesn’t hate me, oh thank god he doesn’t hate me…_

They separated, breathless and shaking. Thor’s hands ran across Loki’s clavicle and down his arms as though he thought him made of porcelain. Loki’s hands were busy pushing the sodden material of Thor’s jacket from his shoulders, trembling as he drew it into his hands.

Pushing his door shut, Loki lifted the sopping material to hang on the coat hook affixed there, and turned cautiously back, not sure what to do, undressed and at Thor’s mercy in almost every sense of the word. He licked his lips, nervous in the dark as Thor became the same, silent stranger from the shadows again, stood in his wet socks in the centre of Loki’s room. He was seemingly waiting for him to make the next move, but Loki had already had his heart broken by his own actions once that night, he had no intention of doing so again.

“Thor, we, we can’t… there is no coming back from this, do you understand?”

Thor frowned, focusing intently on Loki’s lips as he apparently attempted to track the silent words, Loki’s clear and deliberate tones lost to the cacophony above them, and Loki sighed, frustrated.

He walked slowly back to stand before Thor, skin prickling under the weight of his carefully watchful gaze and Loki wondered if maybe Thor had learned more caution than he’d ever given him credit for.

Thor lifted a hand, telegraphing his intentions as he gradually moved it to cup Loki’s exposed hipbone, his grey boxers dragged downwards slightly from his abrupt exit from the bed. Thor’s expression shifted, stillness melting into appreciation as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over Loki’s skin, a half smile lifting the trepidation from his eyes.

Loki knew he should stick to his plan, knew he should at least attempt to tell Thor the truth, or some version of it that might keep him from hating him. If he didn’t feel capable of running from Thor, perhaps he should try to work on ways to run _with_ Thor? 

_Loki could tell him he needed to run without going into why, be gone before morning, lie low somewhere incognito, work on twining Thor about his finger and then, right when his conscience was starting to kick back in through the orgasmic haze, give him the good news that they weren’t actually related by blood. They could disappear into the sunset, anonymous, and reinvent themselves as whoever the fuck they liked, away from the weight of expectations or the truth of their false family._

Loki blinked. Thor’s hand skated up over his waist, tickling slightly and shattering his reverie, reality bumping back into focus as their eyes met. Loki’s breath caught as Thor’s hand continued up past his ribs, over his chest and up to cup his jaw.

Lightning lit the room again and Loki teetered, Thor’s gaze molten as he let it rest on Loki’s lips. Thor’s own mouth formed the shape of Loki’s name, the sound lost in the driving rain once more and Loki felt any and all plans he was building fall to dust, swept aside on a tide of pure need.

_Fuck it._

He rose to his toes and Thor met him midway, their lips pressed in a kiss so oddly sweet that Loki trembled, wrapping his arms about Thor’s middle, shivering, his head thrown back as Thor ducked down to press swift, sharp kisses up and down the length of his throat.

Thor’s jeans and t-shirt were wet, pressing cold and rough on Loki’s skin, and he deliberately rubbed himself against Thor, sinuous, catlike, as the damp coarseness dragged against him, firing up nerve endings that had been otherwise given over to the cold, gasping as Thor bit him lightly.

Thor’s hands were at his shoulders then, pushing Loki away, and he pouted at him, alarmed for less than a beat once he caught the twinkle in Thor’s shadowed eyes, raising an imperious brow his way as Thor slowly peeled Loki’s arms from about his waist.

Taking each of Loki’s hands in his, Thor lifted both their arms wide in a parody of childhood dance lessons as he used his grip to steer Loki a few feet to the right and back until they stood, Loki in particular, in a rectangle of light thrown against the floor, a distant security light outside somehow holding its own against the weather, with just this one pocket of silver light making its way indoors.

Thor’s eyes raked him, and Loki was reminded oddly of that first day back in February, Thor taking in his injuries and the changes in his form all at once and he smiled archly, angling back into the light, tilting to let it fall over him, giving Thor a better look.

Turning him from left to right by way of pulling at their clasped hands, Thor looked him over appreciatively, lingering on the long line of his thighs, the sparse dark hair leading down from his navel to where he swelled now, eager beneath Thor’s eyes.

Releasing Loki’s hands, Thor stepped back a pace, twirling a hand, one finger upraised and, heaving a decidedly put-upon sigh, Loki, his arms still out wide, slowly turned in place. He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Thor appreciated the show he was kind enough to give him, biting his lip to hold in a smile at the heat in Thor’s stare, resting as it did, on his ass.

Hands resting mock impatiently on his hips, Loki lifted both eyebrows haughtily, awaiting the results of his appraisal and Thor laughed, a whisper of it crossing the space between them, his mouth forming words that were instantly absorbed by the rain.

“What?” Loki tried to not shout, both irritated and comforted by the cushioned, cocooned feeling the weather had built around them, there in his room, gasping as Thor dragged him close to kiss him deeply.

“I said,” Thor said, breaking their kiss to speak loudly against Loki’s ear, “ _Very. Nice_.” He cupped Loki’s jaw again, irises receding into the darkness and mouthed, “ _Beautiful.”_

Blushing, feeling oddly fragile under the certainty of Thor’s proclamation, Loki retreated, making a great show of perusing Thor in turn, pulling faces here and there as he reached out to tweak a bicep, tugging on a wet tendril of hair, digging his fingertips into the meat of Thor’s chest atop his heart.

Eventually, Thor got impatient and seized Loki’s wrists, his teeth bared. “ _Well?”_ he mouthed, and Loki did something he’d always wanted to.

He leapt, and Thor caught him.

Arms wrapped over and about Thor’s shoulders, Thor’s hands beneath his thighs as he twined his legs around Thor’s waist, Loki smirked down at him.

“ _You’ll do.”_ He over-enunciated and dipped his head to swallow Thor’s exasperated groan, letting Thor support his weight as Loki tried his best to kiss him hard enough to make up for hurting them both earlier that night. 

It wasn’t precisely clear when teasing, nipping, relieved kisses morphed into needy, frantic pants and cries against each other’s mouths, but Loki found suddenly that he was hard against Thor’s torso. Thor’s palms quaked under his thighs as he held Loki just above where his own hardness was distorting the front of his jeans. 

Thor took a careful step and Loki separated their lips, preferring to have his eyes open if they were in motion and slowly, Thor turned to Loki’s bed, crossing the room to pause just next to it. He smiled, his teeth pushed into his lower lip for a second, the mischievous glint harking back to summers past. For a moment Loki was lulled by a pang of nostalgia so sharp that he forgot how deceptive the baby blue of Thor’s eyes could be, frequently concealing the streak of devilry that apparently compelled him now to fling Loki enthusiastically onto the bed.  

Loki squawked, his limbs thrown akimbo to try and prevent his awkward bounce ricocheting him off the ceiling, fury only partially feigned as he watched Thor throw his head back and laugh, unsure for a brief second if this was all a cruel trick on the part of the universe. 

He was near instantly reassured as Thor hoisted himself effortlessly up onto the bed and over Loki’s sprawled form, a knee on either side of Loki’s hips. Thor grinned down at him, cocky, as he leaned down on his palms to steal a swift, smug kiss, beaming at Loki as he pulled back, and something in Loki quieted, peaceful with a sense of sudden clarity.

_He didn’t care about anything else, as long as he had Thor he could be happy._

The lightning flashed behind Thor, casting the room into black and white, the roar of the light expanding in the sky almost as loud as Loki’s heart beating in his ears, leaning up on his elbows, chasing Thor as he straightened up, his smile teasing. Thor’s eyes softened as he drew himself upright. Loki kissed first his shoulder, then his chest, holding Thor’s gaze as he drew closer to the distended fly of his jeans for the second time that night.

Turning his face, Loki let his eyes flutter shut, rubbing his cheek along the now very familiar ridge of denim, all but purring as he turned his gaze upward again. He smirked as he lifted a hand, balancing precariously on one elbow, pushing Thor’s stretched out and misshapen t-shirt up his stomach, chuckling mentally at what he guessed were the shapes of his own fists in the material. He pressed a smattering of hot, honestly worshipful kisses to the flat expanse of quivering golden skin there, pushing just the edges of his teeth below Thor’s navel just to feel the hitch of his breath at the pressure, Loki’s fingers clenching in the warm fabric once more.

“Take. This. Off.” He leaned back again, tugging on the cotton as he went so that Thor toppled slightly, hands on either side of Loki once more, a thrill racing through him with Thor both over and around him, closing him in with his bulk as he watched Loki’s lips as he said again, slower and more exaggerated: _Take._ _This. OFF._

Laughing silently (Loki could feel it through his fist tight in the t-shirt against Thor’s belly) Thor pulled himself back upright, dislodging Loki’s grip on him, arms crossed over his torso as he drew the badly distorted material up and over his shoulders.

Loki sat up so fast his head spun, hands greedy as they skated up over the revealed flesh, allowed to touch what he’d tried so hard to not focus on for so long now.

“ _Fuu-uuuck_ …” He groaned, digging his fingertips in, dragging his nails down the ostensibly heavenly hewn ripple of Thor’s muscles beneath his glorious, gilded skin. He scratched harder at Thor’s slightly too pleased look, apparently more than happy to be worshipped up close, particularly when Loki found he couldn’t entirely quell the urge to soothe the hurt with long sweeps of his tongue.

With a rumble of approval rolled beneath his tongue, Thor’s hand cupped the curve of his skull, applying just enough pressure to tilt Loki’s head up again to meet Thor’s steady, simmering gaze.

“Lie down,” he mouthed, as the world seemed to rock outside, car alarms going off, the security light flickering before righting itself as Loki all but fell back, so eager he was almost ashamed. He let the storm shroud his voice, allowing himself a full-throated whine of approval as Thor lowered himself, careful to not crush Loki into the mattress with his weight even as Loki wrapped his arms about Thor and _pulled_.

His world was dark with Thor directly atop him, dark and close and Loki bucked, trying to unseat Thor’s ass from atop his hips, desperate to fully align them, head to toe, even if it crushed the life from him.

Squirming, Loki hauled at him, Thor’s chest pressed to his as they gasped and kissed messily around Thor’s smile and Loki’s frustrated grunts. One of Loki’s hands was snarled into the golden hair at Thor’s nape, the other clawed into the meat of one thigh, trying to drag him down, almost spitting with defiance when Thor made an effort to lift himself up once more.

“Take.” He grunted, laughing and evading Loki’s violently clutching fingers as they snatched at him, catching both Loki’s wrists in one hand for just long enough to gesture expressively downward, over-enunciating again to get his point across. “ _Those_. Off.”

Thor’s index finger jabbed towards Loki’s straining boxers before seizing Loki’s wrists again, one in each hand now, as he bore them back to the bedding. His teeth flashed roguishly as he leaned close, his weight preventing Loki from leaning up, too far out of reach for even a kiss as Thor grinned, lightning lit for a moment. “Actually, allow _me_.”

Squeezing Loki’s wrists hard, once, pushing them down meaningfully against the sheets, pinning Loki with his eyes as Thor sat back, thumbing just an inch or so beneath the soft grey material, wetting his lips as Loki lay panting and briefly obedient.

Loki breathed harshly between his teeth, huffing quick breaths in his efforts to not just slam his hips up, to writhe and beg and rip his way out of his underwear if it would get Thor’s hands or mouth on him faster. He pushed up against the pads of Thor’s thumbs as they traced gentle swirls over his hip bones, breaking Thor’s gaze to roll his head against the pillows. He wanted Thor to see the toll the _want_ was taking on him, dammit, his fists clenching in his sheets, teeth embedded in his lower lip as he held himself back despite the cover of the rain beyond their strange almost monochromatic bubble.

Thor seemed to understand, his head dipping again through the shadows, this time to place a kiss against Loki’s quivering stomach, nuzzling for a moment, his beard rubbing oddly against his skin, both sharp and soft, the sensation thrilling Loki so much he almost missed the moment Thor eased his boxers down over his cock.

Loki lifted his head, unable to lie still with Thor curled bent over him, so close that he couldn’t actually see Thor’s face as he bared Loki’s hard-on to the cold room, a shudder forcing it’s way past the stillness as Loki imagined he felt the puff of Thor’s breath against him.

Thor placed one palm against the bed and steadied himself, lifting his head to meet Loki’s gaze, and Loki fell back, eyes clenched shut, tossing his head against the pillow, his hands raised to clutch at his hair as he writhed, fighting to not simply _fling_ himself at Thor and his stupid, beautiful, lustful, _hungry_ fucking face.

_One second. One second of looking in Thor’s eyes and believing what he saw there and Loki felt like he might shred himself with the agony and ecstasy of just fucking existing… He was PATHETIC._

The mattress shifted and Loki felt like he might tip to one side; he opened his eyes to see Thor settling alongside him, his thighs no longer caging Loki in place. Before he could dart up and onto Thor’s lap, Thor leaned across, brushed a soft kiss over Loki’s parted and gasping lips at the same moment he closed careful fingers around Loki’s cock.

Loki stilled, breath caught high in his chest even as Thor became noticeably too distracted to kiss him. He turned his head to watch his hand as he stroked cautious fingers over the tip, pumping the shaft with such a light touch that Loki could cheerfully have stabbed him had it not somewhat fed his frequently scoffed at hope that Thor had never been with a man beyond his interaction with Tony. 

Thor’s touch was tentative, exploratory, scritching his nails through Loki’s neat, dark curls, his lip caught between his teeth with the depth of his intent, before braving a full-handed clasp. He lifted Loki fully free of the warm, now slightly sticky fabric, frustrated almost immediately as the elasticated waistband refused to stay down his length and Loki gulped back a chuckle at the ferocious look of displeasure levelled at his insubordinate underwear.

Thor released his grip and Loki whimpered, unable to help himself, pouting further as Thor lifted himself back to his knees and sat to one side as Loki shifted up onto his elbows, glaring balefully.

Thor tipped to one side, gaze still settled on Loki’s cock, now twitching in the cool air, deprived of Thor’s nice warm clasp, his mildly thoughtful look dissipating as quickly as it had arrived. He leaned over to dip curved fingers into the back of Loki’s boxers, his free hand slapping at his hip, miming ‘up’ as he twinkled merrily at Loki’s irritated scowl.

Loki lifted his hips as though grudging the movement, thrilled in actuality to watch Thor’s gaze light up once more as he rolled the wayward underwear away down Loki’s thighs, not content until he’d hooked them over his heels before they were then unceremoniously tossed back over Thor’s shoulder.

“Pleased with ourselves, are we?” Loki snarked, mistimed, his words following so bright a bolt of lightning that they were each still blinking as Thor tried to focus on his lips, frowning as he missed Loki’s question, but getting the gist if his swift, smug smirk at Loki’s eye-roll was anything to go by.

Loki had an abrupt, out of body flash, where he was suddenly very aware of being naked before Thor, his hard dick just throbbing there on his belly where Thor could see it, and he almost wanted to blush, to squirm away and hide. The moment passed as quickly as it arrived, helped along by Thor’s hand, firmer now, more proprietary, as he first ran his thumb over Loki’s lips and then skated the backs of his curled, careful fingers down over his throat, his chest, his belly--so, _so_ close to where Loki’s cockhead leaked and twitched just below his navel --down one long, tensed thigh before tipping over, palm down over his knee, Thor switching to the other leg to follow the same journey upwards, stopping when he reached Loki’s torso this time.

“ _Beautiful_ ,” he mouthed again, his eyes dark and Loki, quivering so hard his teeth almost chattered, believed him.

Mutely, Loki held his arms out, grateful beyond speech at Thor’s immediate compliance, the hot bulk of him crowding Loki back against the cotton sheets precisely what he needed to root himself back to the moment. The dizzying feeling of floating away in one of his own dreams was rapidly dispelled by the press of Thor’s lips, the scrape of his beard, a damp, denim-clad knee pressing between Loki’s as Thor lay over him once more.

“Thor, please, _please_ …” He moaned into their kiss, the words muddied and blurred by their slick, moving mouths and he didn’t care, he’d beg Thor all night and live with the rush of need racing through him forever if it meant Thor never stopped kissing him.

Thor turned their mouths together again and again, planting soft kisses here, biting harsh kisses there as he let his hand wander, one bracing his weight, the other roaming over Loki’s ribs, ducking around his waist to palm Loki’s ass cheek, digging fervent fingertips in on a groan at Loki’s approving grunt.

_Anything, anything you want, it’s yours, I’m yours, I love this, love it, love you, love you so much._

Loki knew he was babbling, the frantic flow of words bubbling from his lips in the breathless, fleeting gaps between kisses. He writhed beneath the onslaught of Thor’s mouth as he nipped and purred his way down Loki’s throat, pushing his backside into Thor’s grip with the same desperate need for contact that had him trying to twine his legs around Thor’s pushing upwards to fuck his dick over the rippled perfection of Thor’s abs.

Thor had made his way to Loki’s chest at this point, voracious now with the permission to touch all that he could see laid out before him, sucking and lipping his way down from Loki’s collarbone to fit his mouth to Loki’s nipple. He appeared surprised when Loki arched and cried out beneath him, quick to try his luck on the other side of his chest as well, seemingly thrilled to find that this was still something he could do with a male partner as well. 

He kept Loki mindless with sensation for several aching, _glorious_ minutes. He used his grip at Loki’s backside to haul him up, pushing his cock against Thor’s hot skin, switching between Loki’s nipples as swiftly as he went between sucking and biting at the now lightly tormented flesh, sending an entirely new sizzle straight up the back of his spine as Thor turned to place a kiss over Loki’s racing heart, his beard dragging over the already highly sensitized area.

Loki had intended to free his grip from where it was currently set like stone against Thor’s nape and shoulders, steering Thor when Loki couldn’t form to words to instruct him, twisting beneath him in a constant state of near-incoherent bliss. He had meant to reach down, to free Thor, eager to feel his hot, plump dick against his, but each time his own prick slid through the slick, silky trails he was leaving on Thor’s skin, Loki just got too overwhelmed. He arched into Thor’s touch over and over, crying beneath the soft bite of Thor making his way down Loki’s torso, so aroused it made his head hurt.

Thor placed a swift, hard kiss against Loki’s heaving flanks, shifting to loom over him, panting, giving Loki’s buttock a last lascivious grope before bracing himself, his expression intent as he looked up at Loki’s face and Loki felt a moments self-consciousness. 

Heat simmered in his cheeks, he could feel it burning brightly there, sweat beading on his skin, Loki trembling and winded from just the actuality of having Thor there atop him, _hungry_ for him. He’d have felt worse, discomfort edging into true embarrassment if Thor’s body hadn’t all but rocked with the force of his heartbeats, his chest heaving wildly as he grinned down at Loki, a dark, ruddy stain across the top of each cheek and Loki had to smile, each of them so desperate now and so much still to come.

He shivered and, holding Loki’s eyes, Thor dipped to press a lingering kiss to the tip of his erection. He swooped upwards to drag his lips through the glossy trail steadily leaking onto Loki’s stomach, tongue darting out to lap messily at his skin and Thor groaned, loud enough to be heard at last, as Loki all but bit through his own lip beneath him.

Thor closed his eyes as he sealed his lips about the head of Loki’s cock, hollowing his cheeks for what seemed an experimental first suck. He then appeared to vastly underestimate his ability to do so, going by the strength Thor put into it, leaving Loki howling, arched beneath him, torn between pleasure and the belief that Thor honestly meant to kill him.

Loki peeled his hands from over his mouth, blinking at the realisation that his hindbrain had at least _attempted_ to keep him from shrieking the house down, scowling as he realised Thor was laughing, helplessly, forehead dropped to Loki’s hip, his shoulders quaking with mirth.

Reaching out, Loki quickly snatched the pillow from the opposing side of the head and bashed Thor over the head with it, flopping down, exasperated, as this only seemed to increased Thor’s amusement. After a few more moments of apparently hopeless laughter against his skin, Thor recovered himself enough to wipe the stray tears from the corners of his eyes, grinning sheepishly as he ducked to press a remorseful kiss to the ferociously sucked area.

“ _Sorry,”_ he mouthed, smirking, and Loki would have admonished him for the total lack of apology in his expression, had he not been whispering swearwords in a long, tremulous stream as Thor dipped, his eyes on Loki’s, to gently take his cock back between his lips, sucking gently this time, pulling back to kiss it again, close-mouthed, his mouth curving too hard to hold the kiss for even a moment.

_I hear you got a blowjob from that huge, gorgeous supermodel of a brother of yours--how was he? Oh, well, y’know, he couldn’t stop looking happy and delighted to have his lips on me, he literally couldn’t stop smiling long enough to suck me, so y’know… it was_ sublime _… if not a little frustrating._

Loki grinned back at Thor, who--seemingly emboldened by this show of camaraderie--proceeded to lavish the length of his dick with sloppy, wet, sucking kisses, dragging his tongue tip and parted lips up and around the head with enough enthusiasm to curl Loki’s toes (even if he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the occasional prickle of Thor’s soft--but not _that_ soft--beard against him as Thor ducked lower to nuzzle at Loki’s balls.)

Writhing, Loki hummed and slowly, gently shifted his hips, not trying to thrust but already struggling against an urgent need to unfetter the feelings mounting in him, rubbing the heel of one palm hard against a nipple as the other scrunched itself into the sheets, his eyes drifting shut for just a moment.

Loki jolted in shock, eyes wide as his hand was roughly knocked aside, and he saw Thor leaning over him, his own large hand pushing Loki’s away until Thor’s fingers--damp with spit and the tacky sheen of precome--were pinching and tweaking at Loki’s chest, his cry of surprise and startled pleasure swallowed as Thor leaned in to take Loki’s mouth with his again.

Thor dropped the hand he was using to further torment Loki’s aching nipples-- _gods he was going to be bruised in the morning--_ to brace his weight, not breaking their kiss as he reached between them to take Loki’s cock in hand, jerking him in time with the involuntary jabs of Loki’s pelvis up into his grip, purring smugly as Loki wound his arms about him and held on for the ride.

Eyes closed, his heart racing, and skin sizzling everywhere Thor touched, Loki could have happily stayed that way for all time, with the storm keeping reality and even troublesome conversations like ‘ _but I’m your brother, oh wait, I’m not even that_ ’ at bay. He would have happily ridden out the orgasm currently rising in him like smoke, merely clinging onto Thor’s broad shoulders and sucking his tongue for all he was worth, had he not felt the tremor in Thor each time their torsos collided.

Thor was still trapped in his jeans, his erection not getting enough friction to come by himself but Thor was getting off too much on getting Loki off to stop and do something about it.

Loki smiled, gradually disturbing their kiss, his heavy-lidded gaze finding Thor’s as he blearily opened his own quizzical eyes in turn.

_Oh god, he wanted to make Thor come again, make AND SEE Thor come this time dammit_

Loki stretched, slow and languorous beneath Thor as though he had all the time in the world, as though he’d already orgasmed at his leisure and the need to was no longer drumming in him like hailstones. He watched Thor watch him, the shadows of the rain pounding over the windows flickering over Thor’s skin and Loki licked his lower lip, biting it and savouring both Thor’s predatory taste and the slight flavour of himself on his tongue.

Untwining an arm from around him, Loki lightly ran it down Thor’s chest, his fingertips only just brushing his skin until Loki reached a familiar place, Thor’s fly, flicking the button open again, grinning at Thor’s sudden stillness.

“Oh… _hello_ again…” he murmured, Thor’s eyes appearing unfocused as they held on his lips as Loki first cupped his erection through the denim, then squeezed, releasing Thor with his other arm as he set about carefully unzipping him, reluctant to damage his prize.

Thor’s boxers were a mess, Loki noted delightedly, slick with his leaked excitement and the viscous remains of their entanglement earlier, and he tugged both the cotton and the denim down his hips far enough to free Thor entirely. 

Loki pushed at Thor’s shoulders, sitting up and pushing Thor back onto to his knees to better admire his bounty in the low light. He leaned in to press soft kisses of salutation against the balls and shaft, trying to catch everywhere he’d missed earlier that night before Thor’s hand was suddenly in his hair again, pulling him away.

“Déjà vu?” Loki grinned, and Thor rolled his eyes, noticeably flushed as he dragged Loki up to him, stooping onto his hand to steady him again, the other still in Loki’s hair as they kissed, Loki slowly stroking the throbbing thickness in his fingers until he could feel his own neglected cock jerk in seeming jealousy.

Loki gripped the denim where he had forced it down to ride low about Thor’s hips and tugged at it, laying back to make his point and Thor cautiously followed him down. Releasing his fingers from Loki’s still damp hair, Thor planted both hands to hold himself aloft as his body bucked without his permission, the sensation of their damp, hard dicks bumping together too much for him. Loki steered them repeatedly into contact then, lying back and gasping against the sheets, his attempt at smug amusement lost under the tidal wave of _heat and hard and silky and ThorThorThor…_

It only took a moment for Thor to get with the program, his hips dropping to push and roll between Loki’s splayed thighs, dragging their erections together as they were crushed back against Loki’s belly. Loki could hear himself hiccoughing little noises of approval and adoration as he kissed Thor just as frantically as Thor kissed him. 

Their pelvises bumped and rolled in counterpoint to each other, the friction almost perfect, just _this side_ of too much, the drag and pull of their skin together barely smoothed by their sweat and pre-come, and it was fine, it was going to be perfect… it _hurt._

Thor winced at the same moment Loki flinched, feeling Thor hiss against him at the same second he hissed as well, their angle skewed, their thrusts too hard, too dry, too _something_ , but that didn’t stop him whimpering, lashing Thor to him with insistent clutching arms as he felt him pulling slightly away. 

Loki bit at him crossly, not genuinely believing Thor meant to stop, but more than happy to punish him for even considering it. He turned his face from Thor’s slightly distracted kiss to watch what Thor was attempting to do with his now free arm, wobbling slightly on the other as he tried to complete his task without breaking their kiss.

_Oh, how delightfully presumptuous._

Sitting up, Loki ended their kiss with a smirk and, without breaking his gaze, reached across to remove Thor’s hand from where it had been lost amongst the clean boxers in his uppermost bedside drawer, guiding it to pull open the much larger drawer beneath it instead.

He cocked a brow, watching Thor pretend to not be abashed as he leaned over and actively goggled, his hand shaking as it lifted the sought for lube from its place amongst the toys and wipes it sat beside before dropping it to the sheets all without looking away from the drawer.

Loki chuckled to himself, imagining Thor picturing him using the handful of toys he kept in there, the vibrating plugs, _the dildos_ , watching the already heightened colour build yet further in Thor’s cheeks, his hand stretching out again as Thor drew the drawer all the way open.

Thor’s eyes flickered over the contents as though searching for something, a tiny frown crinkling his brow for the slightest of seconds before he reached in with uneasy, seemingly cautious fingers to hold Loki’s favourite up between them. At just under 7 inches and a decent width, it had looked quite daunting (but not _too_ much so, he’d gleefully selected it after all) when Loki had purchased it. 

Now Thor held it--wobbly, flimsy silicon--and glanced down to where his own cock rose, turgid and dark, openly throbbing as Loki’s gaze dropped to it in turn, and the toy suddenly seemed a ridiculous, insubstantial thing, and Loki had to force his expression into inscrutability to keep from blushing and giggling all at once.

Thor looked supremely unimpressed and profoundly smug all at once, Loki thought, the words _I’m bigger_ practically floating over Thor’s head in a cartoon bubble as he clenched his fingers hard about the rubber shaft as though expecting it to crumple in his hand.

Loki looked at Thor--kneeling between his spread legs, smirking at his superiority over Loki’s favoured sex toy--and then his eyes fell on the pump bottle of lube casually resting on the sheets just by his hip and an electric current of ice and fire prickled over him.

_Oh. Oh, FUCK yes._

He reached out to take the toy from Thor with shaking fingers, swallowing, and Thor’s frown returned as he seemed to sense Loki’s abrupt, intense anticipation, watching as Loki held the toy between them.

Loki looked first to the toy, his head cocked to one side as though in thought, before dropping his gaze to Thor’s groin again, lifting his eyes to Thor’s to smile slowly as he tossed the toy away into the darkness, hoping he’d made his preference clear.

_Oh please, oh please, I’ll be good forever, please oh fuck, please._

Loki lifted a single, querying brow, shaking with an onset of sudden vulnerability so powerful that it was almost as though a bucket of ice-water had been flung over him.

_A handjob from Tony and a blowjob from Loki did not a necessarily gay man make, and actually a lot of Loki’s gay friends eschewed anal play entirely, and Thor had only just shown any signs of actually being vaguely into the male form--Loki’s form--that very night dammit, what if he was moving too fast for him, asking too much of Thor?_

Thor swallowed and Loki felt suddenly molten, his bones too liquid and heavy to hold him up as Thor leaned in to kiss him--slow and deliberate--a hand low between them, stroking over Loki’s erection, moving down to cup his balls before dipping beneath them with shaking, clumsy fingers to rub the pads of his fingers over the clench and ache of Loki’s hole.

Loki deepened the kiss, letting Thor acclimatise himself to touching so private and personal an area-- _fuckfuckfuck Thor hadn’t taken a shot for anal during the Never Have I Ever game at the Wakandan party, neither Jane nor bloody Sif had ever had this from him, yes thank you fuck yes_ \--and moved to collect the lube with his free hand, the other sunk deep into the golden hair at Thor’s nape.

He had long been adept at lubricating himself up singlehandedly, mentally thanking the storm for the umpteenth time that night as he slicked his hand liberally, the usual wet squelch of it silent beneath the lash against the windowpanes. He leaned up into the cradle of Thor’s embrace to meet his questing fingers against himself, sliding his fingers between Thor’s to wet them as Thor stilled, gasping.

His hand was shaking, and Loki felt a strange swell of tenderness, easing the wet, not quite soap-scented slipperiness over, and in between Thor’s digits, his own personal North Star awaiting his guidance for once and Loki shivered with the power of it.

Loki rubbed their fingers together over and over until he was sure there was at least a thin layer of the smooth gel between Thor’s skin and his sphincter, shivering as he removed his hand from their intimate exchange between his legs, leaving Thor to watch, eyes fixed on where he circled the pads of his first three fingers against the tight furl of Loki’s own oddly fragile flesh.

It felt as though his face was aflame, his pulse seeming to beat beneath his cheeks as Loki rested on his elbows, content to watch Thor for just a moment, divorcing himself from the quicksilver sensations darting about his bloodstream, trying to both burn him alive and shatter him like ice with every touch of Thor’s fingertips rubbing against him.

Thor was getting bolder, pressing harder, mixing it up between circles of gentle pressure and sudden, smooth strokes up to his perineum and back again and Loki reached for the lube almost out of defence as much as to be fair to Thor. He retrieved another quick pump of the cool gel and closed his fingers over his palm over it to warm it as Thor caught his eyes, smirking at Loki’s no doubt frazzled, and immensely aroused expression.

“Oh shut up,” Loki groused, using the hand still desperately clinging at Thor’s nape to direct his now grinning lips to his own, pressing his tongue into Thor’s mouth on his startled gasp as Loki’s wet fist encircled his cock.

Groaning enthusiastically, Thor thrust into Loki’s curled fingers, toppling forward to land roughly with his weight braced on his knees and elbow, some of it atop Loki as he used his grip to claw him close, keeping their kiss going even as they each huffed with the impact. 

They laughed breathlessly together for a moment before Loki gave Thor a long, tight pump of his fist (purely to regain control, of course, and not at all for the uncomplicated joy of watching Thor’s jaw go slack) and they fell back into kissing, panting and writhing together as Loki squeezed and tugged, and Thor pressed and coaxed. 

Loki didn’t realise he had moved until Thor stilled, lifting his head to peer past his shoulders to where Loki’s knees now squeezed his ribs. He had one heel pressed tight to the small of Thor’s back, his other dug into the fleshy curve of his ass cheek, just above the shoved down denim and a tremor rolled through Thor so hard it vibrated through his fingertips where they rested at Loki’s hole.

Thor’s cock twitched in Loki’s slackened grasp and a gobbet of precome dripped down in a long ribbon onto Loki’s belly, motivating a similar blurt from Loki’s dick as he whined and bucked, mouth already seized again by Thor as everything in him blood, tissue, bone, _everything_ tried to reach up for closer contact, desperate for his touch, his kiss, his--

_Ohhhh_

Loki’s body fluttered and pulsed along with his heart, his excitement strummed by Thor’s fervent, eager touch, a strangled gasp mixing between their lips as just the tips of two of Thor’s fingers slid inside him.

They froze, panting into each other’s mouths, as Loki quietly set about not imploding.

_You’ve done this before, fuck you did this before you left the house today – yesterday – whatever – do NOT come yet dammit!_

Carefully, Loki released his hold on Thor’s prick, a soft, hurt sound at the back of Thor’s rushed exhalation, his eyes watching Loki for what he wanted, what he should do, not paying attention to his now free hand as Loki reached for the lube again. 

Licking his lips, shaking and steadfastly ignoring the voice in his head that was exultantly screaming in anticipation and victory combined, Loki pumped another dollop of gel against his hand. Then, reaching down to let it drizzle from his fingers to where Thor’s hand was frozen against him, Loki leaked the slick against his and Thor’s skin together, getting them both wet.

Thor dropped down to press their foreheads together, his shaky sigh grazing Loki’s lips just seconds before he sealed his mouth over Loki’s again, the kiss sweet and hesitant as he minutely flexed his fingers. Loki concentrated on not letting his body rigorously clamp down in his triumph and anticipation, running his tongue-tip over the edge of Thor’s teeth to distract him as he focused on where Thor’s fingers rested just inside him and _pushed_.

Thor sunk in all the way up to the knuckle and Loki grunted, the digits wider than his own. He grinned as a startled gasp huffed against his lips, Thor was seemingly frozen as Loki let himself clench and writhe a bit, enjoying the burn and stretch of it as much as Thor’s state of shock.

He tossed his head against the pillow, fighting down the urge to laugh. Thor’s fingers were up his ass and his cock was steadily leaking onto Loki’s from where it pulsated above him and all he could think was how much he wanted to pull Thor close and laugh with him about how stupid they both were, how they could have been doing this for _years_ if only they weren’t so _stupid._ Loki only just managed to focus in time as Thor collected himself enough to catch his gaze and keep it.

Thor nodded, slow and serious, as though some sort of plan had been agreed by just the meeting of their eyes, wetting his lips as he _very, very slowly_ mimicked his actions from earlier, rotating his fingers inside him as though asking Loki to spin for him once again. 

Loki’s hands flew to Thor’s shoulders with a wet slap, as his lubed hand struck his skin, not trying to hold him back or stop him--anything _but_ \--just needing something substantial, something he could cling to as Thor continued his excruciatingly slow turns within him, not quite grazing his prostate, not quite hurting, and most _decidedly_ setting his nerves ablaze.

“Fuck yes--that’s--yeah, fuck yeah Thor, _faster_ …”

Loki didn’t think Thor could hear him, he couldn’t hear himself again, the rain just as fierce now as it had been when he’d first let himself into the house and he had to force himself to lie still. He shivered and focused on not pushing down into Thor’s tentative ministrations, just holding his gaze steadily instead, as he tried to get through to him.

‘ _SO. GOOD. FEELS. SO. GOOD. THOR,’_ he mouthed and watched Thor’s eyes follow his lips, his own quirking tremulously before they spread into a broad smile that was so gloriously beautiful that Loki forgave Thor its self-satisfied undertones.

“You want MORE?” Thor grinned, apparently bellowing as Loki heard him clearly for the first time since they’d hit the bed and he winced internally before remembering that their parents would be just as storm-deafened in their room.

Loki nodded, clearly enthused, beyond being embarrassed by showing it, mouthing again,

‘ _YES. MORE. FASTER. HARDER.’_

Thor appeared to have difficulty with these words, frowning briefly and Loki was about to repeat himself when Thor licked his lips, his expression more akin to hunger than nervousness as he replied,

“Did you say _harder_?”

Loki moved his clean hand back to the nape of Thor’s neck to grip there, squeezing his affirmation as he deliberately rolled his hips into the gentle motion of Thor’s fingers, hoping he looked as sultry as he felt with Thor stretched over him, his smile as provocative as his actions as he nodded.

“Oh _fuck_ …” Thor appeared to whisper and then Loki lost track of his thoughts for a moment as Thor did something corkscrew-like inside him, the broad cobbles of his knuckles pressing against where his body had closed around Thor’s searching fingers, the new, fast, twist pushing hard against his inner walls and Loki felt sparks go off behind his skin. 

Loki rocked, crushed beneath the waves of his body’s desires, helpless but to rut and writhe, trying to ride Thor’s hand even as Thor pulled back to push in again. He parted his fingers a little wider this time so that the stretch was new and brain-consuming once more and Loki dropped his arms back from about Thor, to cross them over his face, thrashing behind them as he mewled and sobbed for breath.

He didn’t know if Thor had more experience than Loki had guessed at or if he’d done some research somewhere between Stark and now, but the twist and press of his long, thick fingers against Loki’s prostate felt somewhat less than accidental as he rubbed over it, again and again, curling his fingers in ways Loki had never instructed him, pushing Loki perilously close to pain past the pleasure as he sought it repeatedly.

_“Please, PLEASE Thor, fuck me, oh god please just fuck me, I can’t, I CAN’T…”_

Thor went still, his hands as stone, his hips freezing where they’d been bucking the dripping, wet length of him against Loki’s hip. 

Loki drew one heaving, ragged breath after another until Thor shifted slightly, butting at the arms flopped over Loki’s face until he lifted them to allow Thor to soothe him with soft, entreating kisses, trying to convince Loki to turn back to face him fully, to open heavy, bliss-drunk eyes to look up at him.

“Please, Thor, _please_ …” he wheezed, uncaring of his dignity, certain of his red face and sweaty brow by now as he gazed up into Thor’s gratifyingly spellbound expression, “I, I need it, need _you_ , please, _please_ fuck me?”

Thor closed his eyes, chin dipping until his brow rested on Loki’s shoulder and Loki had a sudden chill of fear that Thor wouldn’t do it, after all, whimpering despite himself as Thor appeared to take several long, shivery breaths before lifting his head again.

He pressed his lips together, looking determined, and Loki felt the gut-wrenching fear that the answer was _No_ rise higher in him, watching as Thor made a great show of looking down to himself and then down to where Loki’s body still gripped him tightly, before shaking his head.

“ _Not. Yet.”_ He mouthed past a massive crash of thunder beyond the walls, and Loki would have argued, would have at least frowned and grouched and made his case, but Thor had pulled his fingers back and was attempting to slide a third in alongside them.

_Ohhhhhhhhh, right._

He couldn't help a tiny flinch, his nose scrunching up as he grimaced, a sharp sting more than a slow burn accompanying Thor’s attempts and Thor stopped immediately, eyes darting back and forth between Loki’s face and where, almost imperturbably, his cock had slightly softened in response to the brief tinge of pain.

Slowly, Thor leaned down to press a smattering of gentle kisses across Loki’s chest, and throat and Loki hummed, pleased by the show of caring but irritated by the limits of his body. He gasped then - hips bucking, his body swallowing Thor’s third finger past the stretch--writhing mindlessly as Thor nipped and bit at his chest once again. The thrill of the _right_ type of pain balanced out the previous ache, particularly as Thor set about soothing the minor hurts with his tongue, rolling his hips to drag his cock against Loki’s even as he held his hand perfectly still inside him, waiting.

_Clever boy, I don’t even care who he learned it from_ , _I’m DEFINITELY going to be the one keeping him._

Loki determinedly settled himself into motionlessness, watching as Thor’s kisses blurred and melded into one long appreciative glide of his lips up Loki’s chest and throat before he pressed their mouths together again.

Thor watched him closely as their kiss ended, each of them huffing quickened, electrified breaths against the other as Thor held perfectly still and Loki gently, incrementally, rolled his hips against the breach of Thor’s three fingers.

Loki undulated carefully, in a long drawn out swivel, his hips turning in place over and over as Thor watched his face for signs of discomfort, his cheeks reddening the more Loki squirmed, his chest hitching in time with each brush of the now broader intrusion against his prostate.

Tightening his grip with knees, pressed tight about Thor’s heaving flanks, Loki hitched one ankle over the other, his hips tilting up further with the action and he moaned, long and loud, hoping Thor would hear him. He dismissed his previous caution for entirely less careful moves, driving his pelvis up hard, fucking himself enthusiastically on Thor’s hand as Thor seemingly suffered a similar breakdown, all restful prudence gone as he pushed back, rubbing the ridges of his knuckles against where Loki’s hole clamped down around his fingers. He twisted his wrist against Loki’s downward thrusts, narrow-eyed, jaw stubbornly set as he determinedly screwed his hand inside him, baring his teeth in feral pleasure each time he caught Loki’s breath catching in his throat.

Loki released the death grip he’d apparently had on the pillow beneath his head, wrapping both arms about Thor’s shoulders to drag him down. Kissing him frantically, Loki cried and drove himself against Thor, more turned on than he could ever remember being in his life (and he’d been on his knees in a sodding nightclub with Thor fucking his mouth only a few hours before!)

Thor’s hand was twisting, stabbing, flexing and splaying every few seconds, Loki’s entrance raw in all the _best fucking ways_ as together they increased their pace, panting so much into their kissing that that could barely keep contact, each of them frantic and frenzied as Thor’s hand slipped and pushed in him and Loki was _more_ than ready dammit. 

He felt oddly unsteady, close to tears with want, ready to beg again in fact, when Thor pulled away from Loki’s lips, twisting his upper body to press his forehead to the bedding above Loki’s shoulder, his weight pitching forward, his teeth visibly clenched as the veins in his neck bulged with effort. Loki realised Thor had removed his bracing arm, holding both his own weight and Loki’s on his knees and forehead as his now free arm reached across the bed to snatch up the other pillow and Loki trembled.

_Gay Sex for Beginners--Anal 101: Make sure your partner is definitely relaxed enough to take your cock and placing a pillow beneath their hips can make it more pleasurable for you both. Check and check… it seemed Thor really_ had _done his research._

Thor dragged the pillow towards them, his chest heaving where their bodies were jammed close together. Loki lifted himself as best he could, wrapping his thighs tightly about Thor’s ribs and pulling an arm back to set his elbow against the sheets as Loki tried to take some of his own weight. Thor swiftly stuffed the pillow beneath him, smoothing the plush wedge into place with a shaky hand as Loki curved his back, desperately trying to hitch it all the way beneath his hips even as he quivered with anticipation. 

Thor placed his hand back against the bed, levering his weight up and off Loki even as his fingers continued their silky glide inside him, his face oddly serious as the thunder rolled fatefully overhead again.

“Loki, are you-- _ARE YOU SURE_?” Thor began to mouth, shifting to a shout midway in his effort to be heard above the din. Loki fisted the hand into Thor’s hair and yanked his head down until his ear was close enough to press his mouth against.

“Thor, if you don’t fuck me now, I will _KILL YOU_!” he bellowed back, uncaring whether there was thunder or not, laughing as Thor winced, releasing his hold to fall back, and grinned up into Thor’s vaguely exasperated expression.

“ _Brat_.” Thor spat, mock glaring and Loki recognised the word on his lips from years gone by and an odd thrill ran down his spine at the presence of the boy who was still his brother--his best and most favourite person--here in the skin of the beautiful man about to take his technical virginity.

He beamed at Thor, unable to help himself, nostalgia, arousal and love all vying for control of him, meeting at the place where Thor was, and remained, the focal point of his universe, and Thor swallowed, nodding once.

Stopping his motions inside Loki, Thor steadily and very carefully withdrew his fingers from inside him, Loki whimpering at the loss more than the ache of his rim stretching around their expanse, breath quaking in his lungs at Thor’s serious, vaguely probing look.

“Alright?” he asked, eyes unblinking, and Loki nodded quickly, a lump at the back of his throat making him break eye contact, searching out the lube once more to buy himself a second to gather his emotions together once more.

Loki sat up as best he could, legs thrown over Thor’s hips where he loomed over Loki, sat back on his haunches as Loki got an elbow down again, his other hand already wet with slick, reaching out to coat Thor’s prick with quivery, eager fingers.

He spent a long moment just biting his lip and groaning at the perfection at the wet slurp of Thor’s cock sliding through his fist, inwardly dismissing the notion of a condom even before it could fully come to fruition. Thor was routinely tested as was Loki, but mostly he couldn’t bear the thought of anything between him and Thor. He knew it was stupid, possibly reckless, and likely unfair to Thor to not even ask but Thor was already pulling back from his desperate grasp, pushing Loki’s hand away with an entreating, fevered look, diving down to frantically crush their mouths together.

Loki wrapped himself, limpet style, about Thor, legs up about him again as he dragged Thor close by his shoulders, whimpering and heady as he felt Thor press the hot, snub head of his dick against his clenching, empty hole, rubbing it back and forth against him as Loki surged and cried beneath him, sobbing for it.

They kissed, long and heated, and Loki let his arms fall back to the pillow, breathless and almost dazed with want. He gazed into Thor’s eyes as they separated, Thor shifting down onto one elbow, his hand alongside Loki’s face as he stroked his thumb along a flushed cheekbone, his expression so openly besotted that Loki’s eyes stung.

He let his knees fall wide, heels digging into where Thor’s ass curved into his thighs, trying to force Thor forward, force him _inside_.

“N…Now?” Thor stuttered, his cheeks stained wine-dark, the word falling husky and desperate into the lull in the roar outside, a sheet of lightning shooting across the sky just bare seconds later, an arc of thunder rolling just behind it.

Loki nodded, jerkily, wetting his lips. “Yes, Thor… _Yes. Now._ ”

Dropping his forehead to Loki’s for a moment, Thor drew in a long, shaky breath, kissing Loki quickly--too quick for Loki to kiss back--rubbing his cock against him harder, and _pushing in_.

It hurt--not like the pain when he’d first pushed his fingers inside himself, spending all the rest of that day oddly aware of his own sphincter. Nor was it like the pain from the first time he’d utterly gone to town on himself with his hands-free favourite, slamming himself onto it against the shower wall until he’d hurt too much to sit down for dinner, and had excused himself with a faked bad stomach and thrown himself a pity-party as he carefully lay in bed that night.

It wasn’t even the same sharp spikes of pain that had plagued him all the way back to Asgard, tears prickling from more than just grief, the hot lances of pain from his cramping, overextended jaw muscles salting his self-inflicted wounds all the way home.

This pain was familiar and new all at once; the exquisite stretch of being filled literally one of his favourite things in the world. The blood-hot, silky weight of Thor pushing in and _in_ was such an overload to his senses that Loki forgot how to breathe for the space of a heartbeat or five, his eyes scrunching shut as he arched helplessly, his jaw dropped wide on a silent cry, utterly overcome.

Abrupt pressure at his cheek had Loki’s face tilted back to Thor’s before he really knew he’d turned away from him. Thor’s grip jostled him to open his eyes, to focus on Thor’s strained and sweaty face, blinking as he gently shook Loki’s face again, mouthing two words against the storm.

“Loki… _Breathe_.”

The ache in his chest finally registered over the burn in his blood, and he gasped, sucking in deeply before blowing out in a low, steady stream. Loki’s lips trembled up into a smile as he took in Thor’s creased brow and worried eyes.

Thor had gone still, minute judders carrying up from his thighs as he halted himself so entirely that his muscles stood out, gleaming wetly as the weather redoubled its efforts outside. Loki took another deep, restorative pull of air to relax again, and bore down.

An expression of something so like agony crossed Thor’s face, gone too fast for Loki to slow his push down over Thor’s flesh, the bright blue eyes scrunching tightly shut as Thor appeared to gasp, shock and pleasure warring as he visibly fought to hold himself steady. 

Loki paused unintentionally, his focus on getting himself all the way down Thor’s length suddenly cast aside by the constriction of his muscle walls as they rippled and clamped about the broad intrusion in ways that were not particularly pleasant. Breath whistling through his teeth, Loki closed his eyes for a second to remind himself that his body would adjust if he just relaxed and gave it time, opening his eyes to see Thor looking down at him with his brows drawn together, genuine alarm written over every inch of his skin.

“I’m alright, Thor…” Loki wheezed past a particularly violent stab as his body objected to what he knew it would welcome in just a second or so, “…just need a moment.”

Thor’s face twisted, self-loathing or something equally abhorrent to Loki marring his handsome features, before he abruptly dropped down (his cock apparently far enough inside now to free up his other hand, Loki noted triumphantly) to press frantic, fervent kisses across Loki’s cheeks, apologising over and over as he reached his lips.

“Sorry, Loki--I’m so sorry, I knew it would… but I never thought it would _really_ , I mean… I never meant it to--I’m so sorry…”

Loki stilled him with a palm to either side of his face, holding Thor steady as he frowned up at him, trying to hide the extra pressure that Thor’s being bent low over him had added to the thrust of him deep inside Loki.

“Why are you apologising?” he managed to burst out between the flash above them and the roar that followed, lifting his knees to grip Thor’s sides again.

He shifted, oversensitive as he felt tiny tremors rolling across his skin, rubbing him the wrong way, deliciously aware of the pain finally settling into the sweet, sullen ache that he knew so well. He rotated his hips gently and Thor gasped, feeling himself slide several inches deeper, Loki’s body easing enough to allow him in.

Thor’s eyes were wide now, flickering between Loki’s face and downward as though he could see where his cock was gliding its way up inside him. His shoulders were noticeably shaking with the effort of remaining still even as Loki writhed and pushed down against him, eager now for the full length of Thor’s dick, to have his balls pressed tight against him, taking more of Thor than he believed anyone ever had before.

“Does it… am I _hurting_ you?” Thor ground out, looking appalled as his hips hitched infinitesimally in response to the no doubt breath-taking sensation of Loki’s body rippling and squeezing Thor’s cock as Loki stirred beneath him.

Loki nodded solemnly, smiling before Thor could look any more horrified.

‘ _Yes… and I fucking LOVE it. Do it MORE,’_ he mouthed, holding Thor’s startled, abruptly darkening gaze for a beat before deliberately rolling his spine, a sharp, almost disbelieving laugh punching out of him as the action rammed Thor’s cock into him up to the hilt.

_Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuuuuuck_

Thor really was huge, Loki _knew_ that, had known it before touching, blowing and now fucking him, but _feeling_ him was another matter entirely.

He could feel the heat of Thor’s balls resting against him, the spread-wide metal zipper cold against the curve of his ass, the wiry softness of Thor’s hair prickling the already highly stimulated skin of his perineum, his body opened wide around the ridiculous circumference of Thor’s dick. Nothing, _nothing,_ however, could compare to the length and breadth of him pressing deep inside Loki, farther in and more invasive than anything Loki had ever attempted it and it burned and _hurt_ like nothing else he had ever known.

Loki fucking _loved_ it.

He let Thor see the wash of sensation rush up through his body, his eyes rolling back as he arched and gasped, the startled ‘O’ of his lips stretching into an exultant laugh as he reached up to seize Thor’s troubled face, pulling him in for a kiss.

“Yes,” he hissed illogically as he slammed their mouths together over and over, his hands in Thor’s hair, steering him back and forth between breaths, triumphant, “ _Yes_.”

Thor stole back Loki’s hands, pinning them down, dodging Loki’s seeking mouth long enough to gaze down at him, his eyes regaining their sparkle as he absorbed the pink riding Loki’s cheeks, the flare of light outside the window highlighting what Loki hoped was the visibly unchecked bliss fizzing beneath his skin.

“You… feel,” he mouthed, over-enunciating carefully as Loki watched his mouth, licking his own lips in turn, “so… _GOOD_ , Loki. Ca-- Can I…?”

“Thor? _FUCK ME_.”

Thor groaned, audible in the aftermath of the thunder, the rain seemingly less vicious against the sides of the house as Loki’s blood roared in his veins instead, sealing his mouth over Loki’s for an achingly sweet kiss that almost distracted Loki from the incredible fullness that came of having Thor inside him.

_Almost_.

Thor rocked backwards, slow and smooth, and Loki whined, the feeling of loss somehow shivery and agreeable even as he tossed his head against the bedding, eager to be full again, rewarded only seconds later as Thor thrust in once more, and _just kept thrusting_.

Loki thought he might have howled, the rapid roll and ripple of Thor’s spine keeping his body completely besieged by sensation, his nerve-endings unsure of which way to fire as the fat head of Thor’s dick rammed and dragged its way back and forth inside him with Loki clinging on for dear life.

He slung one arm up around Thor’s neck, running oddly reverent fingers up through his sweaty hair to cradle the curve of his skull. Loki tightened his hold there after a few moments of complete adoration, his other arm going up from Thor’s elbow to his shoulder, back down over his hitching, heaving ribs to the small of his back--pressing him closer, _closer_ \--and back again.

Thor lowered his head to kiss Loki deeply, all oddly tremulous lips and wanton, possessive stabs of his tongue, deep-chested moans rolling from his mouth into Loki’s as he nipped and sucked at Thor’s lower lip, all but delirious in his jubilation.

Loki felt a short, breathless sound punched out of him on every stroke of Thor’s dick into him, unable to help them any more than he was able to stop squirming upward, trying to fuck himself on Thor as hard as Thor was fucking him-- _harder_ if possible--whining when all his attempts appeared to do was throw off Thor’s rhythm.

“More, More, Harder, _PLEASE_ …” He babbled piteously, pressing worshipful kisses from Thor’s mouth across to his ear even as he was hissing through his teeth, “Fuck me _harder_ dammit, Thor, I want to feel it every fucking day…”

Something like a laugh ripped its way past Thor’s smile, transforming into a growl as he nipped Loki hard in response to his demand, shoving one arm beneath Loki’s shoulders, his mouth pressed tight to Loki’s ear as he snarled, “You want it harder, brother? I’ll give you _harder_.”

Falling to hold himself up by just his knees and the elbow planted by Loki’s head, slipping slightly against the sheets, Thor dropped his face into the hollow of Loki’s throat and, pulling back, slow and smooth, he proceeded to hammer his way back inside.

Loki _wailed_. He’d have been embarrassed, but Thor was pounding into him with everything he had, and all Loki could do was hold on for the ride and try to not black out, his cock jostling between them as Thor fucked him with every gloriously muscular inch at his disposal.

Wrapping both arms about Thor’s shoulders again, Loki let himself sob and cry and writhe without even a shred of discomfiture, his bliss bleeding over into frustration and satisfaction both, the feelings twined around themselves as he mouthed wet kisses across the skin of Thor’s straining, surging shoulders. He knew it was too hard for his ‘first time’--hell, it might end up like the hands-free dildo all over again--he just didn’t _care_. He was elated beyond words to have Thor, to _possess_ him in this way, and yet he was also one sharp stab of Thor’s cock into his hole away from weeping, so desperate to come that he couldn’t even form the words to express it.

Thor slowed momentarily, a soft grunt punctuating the lift of his head from Loki’s neck to kiss him, swaying drunkenly as he pulled his arm from beneath them both to plant his palms against the mattress once more. Spreading his thighs as wide as the constraints of his jeans would allow, he set his hips rolling hard again, his thick cock dragging against Loki’s insides savagely as Loki whined and thrust up in turn, trying to force Thor somehow deeper.

Growling against Loki’s lips, Thor straightened in a pornographic parody of a push-up, lifting himself up and withdrawing, lips quirking as he watched watch Loki’s mouth as he protested and panted.

Loki wasn’t sure of what he was saying beyond a sense of urgency, of begging, _pleading_ with Thor ( _don’t stop, please never stop, get back inside me please gods PLEASE_ ) as he leaned up to follow him, kissing him frantically. 

Thor shoved a forearm under Loki’s knee, pressing his leg upwards, somehow opening Loki more to him as he slid home in one forceful motion, giving Loki the sudden sensation of being impaled, Thor grinning down at Loki’s quick gulp and rolled back eyes.

Loki’s arms dropped down, his fingers caught and curled into the tensing muscles at the back of Thor’s thighs, clinging there as he felt his whole body jostling against the mattress, his entire form rocked by the force of Thor’s thrusts and all he could do was lie there _and take it_.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, wave after wave of pleasure simmering in his belly and frothing up through him as he held Thor’s gaze. He stared down at Loki, both tender and predatory all at once as a sincere but almost feral pleasure shone in his eyes with every hiccupped sob that tore free of Loki’s throat, his head tossing on the pillow but never, _never_ breaking eye contact with Thor.

“ _So… fucking… good… Thor… love… it… love… you… don’t… stop… Thor… so… perfect… love… you… don’t… stop… love... you… love you… love… you…”_

A fierce grimace twisted Thor’s face as he curled over Loki, hips battering Loki’s as his speed and force increased, and he seized Loki’s mouth in a wild, desperate kiss.

“M’close, so fucking close, Loki…” He panted harshly and Loki keened, thrashing and grabbing a handful of Thor’s ass cheek, trying to drag him in deeper. Loki frantically nodded his assent, twisting from side to side, trying to kiss every inch of Thor before him as he pressed bruises into Thor’s skin as he tried to pull him deeper, harder, faster inside him.

“Yes, fuck _yes,_ Thor, I want that, please, come in me, _come in me_ , I want it, fuck I want it _so much_ …”

Thor groaned, his expression more akin to when Loki had struck him hours before, his features contorting as though in pain, gasping and struggling as his body seemed to fight him, increasing tempo and ferocity even as he shivered and tried to press soft kisses to Loki’s lips.

“Loki, _Loki_ …” he chanted, as though his name were the only thing tethering Thor to the moment, forearms trembling before he crashed down to his elbows once more. Thor turned to hide his face in Loki’s throat as his rhythm went utterly awry and Loki had to spear fingers roughly into his hair to pull his face back up, determined to not be robbed of this precious occurrence twice in one night.

Lightning lashed the walls, the room briefly bright white, and Thor’s eyes were so, _so_ blue, his cheeks ruddy with effort and ecstasy. Obeying Loki’s tug at his hair, his head lifted to match Loki’s gaze, Thor’s chest heaved, his hips stuttering, teeth firmly set in a grimace that looked like agony but was anything but, as Thor shuddered, a ragged bellow torn from him, his eyes holding Loki’s as he jerked and spilt inside him.

Something in Loki’s chest twisted painfully, primal and victorious, and he let himself blink once--determined to not allow a second of _Thor_ _coming_ inside _him_ go unseen--and took a long, steadying breath to keep from screaming his triumph, wild and jubilant, over the storm.

_I did that. Me. I took apart the great and mighty Thor with just my mouth and my words and my love, and when he came in me it looked as though I was his whole world…_

“You’re so beautiful, _god,_ Thor, just look at you, fuck, c’mere, c’mere…”

Thor was still shaking, his hips grinding his dick (and, frankly, what Loki hoped was bucketfuls of come) inside him, his eyes clenching shut as all his muscles seemingly rebelled. Thor struggled to hold his weight (and a fair portion of Loki’s) up and off of Loki, the unprovoked chivalry undoing Loki completely as he whimpered and clutched Thor close and kissed him.

Loki wanted to come, of course he did, but at that moment all he wanted was to hold Thor and luxuriate in the feeling of having him inside him, revelling in the memory of all of Thor’s strength and focus centred on him as he’d fucked him exactly as Loki had dreamed. He could easily give himself a hand--or, presuming he didn’t fall asleep immediately, get Thor to give him on-- and come his brains out in likely just moments, but he just wanted to lay there and remember how it felt to have had Thor moving in him and… Thor was _still_ moving in him.

Loki’s eyes opened, suddenly aware of how much quieter the rain had become in their distraction. He fancied he could actually hear the wet squelch of Thor’s body as it drove into him over and over, Thor’s already slippery cock now sliding in his own mess, the tremors disappearing from his frame as he locked himself in place, his tongue chasing Loki’s between their lips as--slowly but surely--Thor resolutely continued to fuck him.

Twisting to evade Thor’s addictive, _glorious_ kisses, Loki gaped up at him, his body inadvertently clenching down all the harder at the hot length still stabbing deep within him, the memory of Thor’s slowly deflating post-shower thickness nudging him as they snuggled in his bed assailing him as he found himself re-tightening his knees around Thor’s waist.

“Doesn’t,” Loki had to clear his throat to shift the strange sense of shyness of being heard all of a sudden, as he blinked up at Thor, his cock twitching violently between them at the heavy-lidded, sated _smugness_ radiating from Thor’s every pore. “Doesn’t it hurt you to keep going like that?”

His voice--fully audible now, the thunder a good ten seconds or so behind the lightning’s lesser flash--seemed strange to him now, only heard before when loudly begging or crying for Thor to touch him, fill him, _fuck_ him. Now here they were, with Thor doing all of those things, smiling down at him like Loki was the most precious, wondrous thing in the world even as Thor ground his fat, dripping cock in circles inside him.

“I’m good,” Thor rasped, dropping his head to just barely press their mouths together, their lips brushing as he continued, “Are _you_ alright, brother?”

He punctuated his sweetly querying tone with a roll from his toes up through his hips that lifted Loki clear of the bed for a second, his back arching of its own volition as Thor slid an arm about his waist, hitching him higher, both of them gasping as he settled Loki back atop his thighs.

“Oh, oh _fuck_ …” Loki gasped, throwing his arms around Thor’s shoulder for balance, Thor’s arm keeping him from sliding back to the mattress, his body bowed, his cock bouncing obscenely between them as Thor pumped himself up into Loki’s ass instead of down and something in Loki _caught alight._

Thor grunted as Loki wildly bucked and spasmed, trying to both evade and capture the sensation of direct stimulation that Thor’s cock was somehow giving his prostate, his girth and the new position somehow jamming his still plump, stiff flesh against Loki’s tender insides. He swore, and spat, and yelped, and swivelled his hips back and forth, his body trapped in an unending current, sparks seeming to strike upon his skin everywhere that Thor touched him. Loki was sobbing now, clinging to Thor, more powerless and turned on than he had ever been in his life, not sure if he wanted to come or simply die this way, and then Thor simply took the matter out of his hands.

With a low roar of effort, Thor heaved himself all the way back onto his haunches, Loki’s legs crossed tightly about his waist as his own weight threatened to topple them back to the mattress, Thor steadying them with one arm outstretched to brace at Loki’s headboard, his teeth clenched as he ground out,

“Loki, Loki… _are you close_?”

Loki didn’t have the words to answer him, attempting a kiss against Thor’s lips, unable to hold himself still, bucking and twisting, mindless with pleasure as the sparks sizzled and sang in him, nodding fervently when nothing but sobs and moans passed from his lips to Thor’s.

“T-touch yourself, I--I want to see you… _please_ brother, let me see you come again…”

Loki wasn’t sure he could even stand his own touch at this point, every brush of his cockhead against the hot skin of his belly like an extra bolt of lightning through his nerve-endings as it bobbed between them, Thor’s cock seemingly set on frying him from the inside out. So he whimpered as he slowly lowered one hand from its clutch at Thor’s nape to obey him. Hesitantly, he wrapped his long, shaking fingers about the root, squeezing slightly, a soft cry escaping from his lips, more pain than pleasure, and Thor stilled.

“Too much?” he asked gently, voice a hushed whisper as the storm all but disappeared into the distance, Loki’s heaving, hastily snatched breaths more audible now than the remains of the downpour.

Loki could almost have laughed at the difference, the same question that had goaded them both into public indecency only a few hours before now uttered with such caring, bone-deep sweetness that Loki could almost have cried as he pushed his forehead against Thor’s. He felt oddly weightless, suspended there between the mattress and Thor’s lap, grounded only by his and Thor’s grip and the spear of heat still resting inside him.

“I’m alright,” he whispered back lethargically, his voice gravelly from the mixture of emotions rising at the back of his throat, pulling back just far enough to let Thor see him as he slowly moved the hand around his cock. Loki moaned softly as he remembered how much he truly wanted to come.

He circled his hips once more, letting the whine rip straight past his abruptly clenched teeth for Thor to hear as his body hitched without his say-so. Unable to keep himself from driving himself against Thor’s thickness, it pressed against where he was most sensitive, setting him ablaze in ways his vibrating plugs had only hinted at, setting him squirming again as his orgasm threatened to tear its way free of his flesh.

“Yes, that’s it… _fuck_ … you’re so, you’re so… Loki, _Loki_ , open your eyes for me, look at me, gorgeous, look at me…”

Loki forced his eyes open with genuine effort, unable to catch his breath, and not sure he could stop himself from coming even if he wanted to. A sensation so like pain abruptly splintered within him then and he fought it for a microsecond before arching back. Thor’s name burst from his lips as he shattered, rapture blazing through him as he came in hot, silky spurts against his stomach.

He didn’t know they were lying down again until he felt a careful, cradling palm at either side of his face. Thor’s thumbs traced gentle patterns against his cheeks as he pressed soft kisses over his eyelids, on his forehead, the tip of his nose, and eventually made his way back to claim Loki’s lips in the sweetest kiss Loki had ever known.

“So, so beautiful,” Thor murmured drowsily, still circling his hips into the still instinctively hitching movements of Loki’s, each idle thrust inside him pumping a lazy spill of thick, dwindling come from the tip of his dick and onto his belly. “My Loki.”

Languid with the haze of pleasure still slow to clear from his mind, it took Loki a moment to realise that the odd little sizzling aftershocks of his orgasm weren’t actually fading at all, but building, sharpening, stealing his voice to utter a short cry the next time his hips rose to meet Thor’s and they each stilled, dismayed.

“ _Ow_ ,” Loki said plaintively, and Thor froze as though struck.

“Ow,” he said again, and then, “ow, ow, ow--alright--new plan. You’re going to get out of me very, _very_ carefully, and very slowly, Thor, and you’re going to ignore everything I might say while you’re doing it because I don't really mean it, alright?”

Loki’s pleasure haze was receding much faster than he would have liked; he usually rode the endorphins of a good orgasm for a good little while after, but it seemed he really had asked a little too much of his body in this instance because now it _hurt_ , dammit.

“I, yes, of course, I--when should I…?”

“ _Now_ … please.”

Loki couldn’t help the sharply indrawn breath that hissed between his teeth as Thor gradually withdrew his still mostly hard length (and wasn’t _that_ a decidedly strange sensation) from inside him. Loki clenched his eyes shut, partly because he was cramping from overuse in areas he had actively encouraged Thor to ‘abuse’ as it were, and partly to block the sight of Thor’s stricken expression as he noted every last iota of pain he inadvertently caused him.

He was starting to feel oddly nauseated, tearful with disappointment that his body’s inexperience might have just ruined their moment, when the head of Thor’s cock finally popped past the (only slightly sore) ring of muscle and Loki caught his breath, eyes flying wide again.

Thor’s come flooded from him, seeping onto the sheets below, and Loki found himself utterly transfixed by the sensation. He watched Thor’s face, his lips parted, all guilt and horror seemingly wiped away by the explicit, somewhat graphic reminder of the outcome of their communion, and Loki couldn’t help his groan, his cock twitching ineffectually where it lay softening against his belly, and the light flooded back into Thor’s eyes.

Thor let his cockhead rest, snub and still obscenely plump, against Loki’s hole, rubbing it back and forth against the leaking come as it spilt from Loki and Thor growled, possessive and pleased as Loki whined and pushed into the contact.

His insides were sore, it was true, but the cramps were already dying away now without the shove of Thor’s broadness against his tender, oversensitive spots. For all it had stung and stabbed and _hurt_ , Loki couldn’t help but tilt up into the skittering stroke of Thor’s cock through where his own slickness was leaking out of Loki, wishing he would fuck him again and _again_ until they were both too sore to move.

Loki stretched, indolent now with rediscovered pleasure, the joy of knowing he’d had Thor inside him far outweighing the discomfort of having ‘popped his cherry’, contentment thrumming under his skin crackling into an almost painful resurgence of arousal as he watched Thor dip to run his tongue through the streaks of come across his abdomen. He smiled up into Thor’s face as he leaned over him to tangle their tongues around each other, Loki gleefully sucking the taste of himself from Thor’s lips, each of them grunting soft, smug little sounds into the kiss as they settled against the sheets, resting entwined together.

He blinked his eyes open to the sound of soft laughter, Thor chuckling as he pressed kisses across his cheekbones as Loki glared at him blearily.

“What?” he growled, and Thor kissed him again, humming with something like regret as they separated a moment later.

“You were asleep, brother. I’d be offended, but truly I think I should take it as a compliment, all things considered.” Thor grinned at Loki, self-assured and rumpled in what looked like the grey light of dawn breaking outside and Loki’s heart hurt with the depth of his love for him. His breath caught in his throat before he could reply, giving Thor space to continue, “Much as I’d like to let you or join you, in fact, I imagine it is better to um… clean you up now, rather than later?”

Thor’s face flamed in an entirely different way than from when he’d been fucking Loki into his own mattress, and he couldn’t help a chuckle as Thor attempted to look nonchalant. His thoughts were clearly on the wet patch now cooling beneath Loki, and so Loki faked a stretch, arching below him to let Thor see the smeared come across his belly as well.

“Hmm, you might be right, brother dearest. Usually, I would just use a wipe to clean up but… well, you _do_ seem to have made rather a mess of me.”

Thor’s face coloured further and Loki watched, fascinated, as Thor’s pendulous cock made a last-ditch effort to jerk towards him, smiling broadly as Thor caught him staring.

Thor gestured to where Loki’s come was smeared across his own stomach, apparently caught between them in the snuggly aftermath, and Loki raised an imperious eyebrow. “I never said it was _just_ you.”

He abruptly rolled out from beneath Thor, needing to prove he could do so before he decided to ignore the come drying in sensitive places on his skin and just burrow back into Thor’s embrace to sleep, wet spot or no. He plucked the wipes from his bedside drawer and tossed them to a slightly alarmed looking Thor, one of his feet already on the floor as though afraid Loki would flee from him as he had earlier that night, and so Loki smiled gently at him, letting some of the torrents of love he felt cascading through him shine through.

“I’ll only be a minute,” Loki promised and ducked into the bathroom.

Thanking every god in the cosmos for wet wipes, utterly unwilling to run a flannel beneath what he assumed was still the deathly cold water, he set to cleaning himself in the darkness. He marvelled at the amount of come clinging to his inner thighs, a bolt of heat racing through him as he recalled struggling to swallow the generous amount that Thor had pumped across his tongue the night before. Loki imagined what it would be like to get used to dealing with it, swallowing all of it, having it shooting up into him several times daily, getting used to Thor’s size enough to be able to take him several times daily, remembering his latest plan then, to keep Thor, no matter what.

He carefully cleaned the tender, slightly raw skin of his opening, oddly smug to realise that it wasn’t anything like as sore as when he’d hurt himself enthusiastically riding his plastic cock, deciding then that it was likely Thor’s size that had made him so initially raw at the end. Grinning to himself, Loki concluded that practice would very likely make perfect in that regard, all he had to do was _keep at it._

His smile faltered.

He’d been ready to run. To give it all up, the hopes, the pretence, everything. Just pack his bags, take his stash of cash and disappear.

Of course, it was still tempting--the idea of yet another hammock, with naked, fuckable Thor in it under a Jamaican sunset was diamond bright in the fatigue-dimmed shadows of his mind--but realistically, Loki knew it would never work.

He could run, alone, give up Thor and hope that he would never catch him, never find out why Loki had lied, had twisted Thor’s love to his own purposes, never see him again.

Or, he could try and take Thor with him, eventually confess that what they were doing wasn’t, in fact, the disgusting crime that Thor’s brain had yet to remind him of, but in doing so reveal that everything Loki was to him, everything he had ever been to him was a lie and likely never see him again.

Or, optimistic though it oddly felt, he could do nothing. 

‘Their’ parents had made no move as yet to reveal their deception, Thor had yet to realise that their love, as it was, between two brothers was technically a crime, and this way Loki could wait until it seemed as though Thor was tired of him or repulsed by him and then try option one. At least that way he’d get the most time possible with Thor, lies though all of it might be. Loki’s entire life seemed built on lies, why should his love be any different?

Having wiped away the last of the crusted come on his stomach and briefly used the facilities to be on the safe side, Loki re-emerged from the bathroom, his joy slightly dampened by the brief brush with reality that had snuck into the bathroom past his euphoria.

For a moment, the sight that met his eyes struck him as oddly touching--his bed remade as best it could be, Thor’s t-shirt smoothed out over the wet patch, the covers laid open, waiting for him, as was Thor as he lay on the bed in the dim, rainy morning light, smiling, sleepy and naked.

Loki cracked up.

Staggering to the bed, he crawled up to collapse against Thor, Loki’s sides aching and shaking with laughter, worsened by Thor’s stunned expression as he lay against him and laughed until he could barely breathe.

“I do apologise,” he wheezed when he could finally formulate words, “it’s just… you finally took your jeans off. You sucked, fingered and fucked me, and we never got around to actually removing your wet jeans, it just struck me as rather funny, I’m afraid.”

Loki lifted his head from where he’d lain, snorting with mirth, for the last minute or so, against Thor’s ribs, catching Thor’s smothered grin as he attempted Loki’s own lofty eyebrow quirk back at him.

“Yes, brother. Hilarious,” he deadpanned, and Loki shoved down the part of him that still flinched each time Thor used the term, moving to flop back against the pillows, smiling coyly at him.

“Well, it rather was, to me. It was basically as though you were so utterly desperate to fuck me, brother, that you forgot to actually get undressed, hm?”

Thor shifted slowly, giving Loki more than enough time to move should he wish to, one thick, muscular thigh falling between Loki’s as he leant over him, every inch of them touching as Loki raised his arms to pull Thor completely atop him, and Thor whispered against his lips, “That sounds accurate, yes.” 

Loki beamed briefly into the kiss before succumbing with a sigh, evading sleep for just a little longer as Thor languorously reclaimed his mouth with his tongue, humming his approval each time Loki tilted beneath him for just another few precious moments of contact, oxygen be damned.

Eventually, they slipped onto their sides, exchanging deep, breathless kisses for lazy, messy smudges of their mouths against each other, yawning as they snuggled closer. Thor drew the covers up over them as Loki burrowed close, assuming his standard position with a feeling of decided smugness as Thor peppered kisses from his chin to Loki’s hairline and back again.

“I don’t… I don’t understand though.” Loki sighed as the spectre of sleep stood between him and his sense of guile. “How are you even here? I got on the last train knowing you couldn't follow me. How--how’re you here?”

Thor stiffened slightly as Loki pulled himself back from the brink to blink owlishly at him.

“Sorry… I mean, I was frightened… I thought you would hate me, so I ran.”

Thor sighed, smoothing a hand over Loki’s hair, frowning as he kissed him “I could never hate you, you little fool. Stark drove me, dropped me off outside.”

Loki blinked slowly once more, his eyelids drooping to stay closed without his consent as he absorbed this information.

“He said I’d thank him.” Loki slurred and Thor made a drowsy, questioning noise in response but Loki was too far gone to explain it.

“Nevermind,” he whispered and surrendered to sleep.

 


	15. Part Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author revisits canon, but feels bad about it.

**Chapter 15:**

Loki woke, briefly, a few hours later, convinced that something was terribly wrong, that he’d dreamt the whole thing, that Thor had changed his mind and, disgusted, had left him forever.

He registered the sound of the pipes as the toilets flush died away and Thor crept back into bed then, shushing his panicked murmurings with several sure and certain kisses, Loki’s tongue snaking between their lips to set the low heat simmering between them even through the fog of sleep and Thor chuckled low, chastising him for being insatiable before tucking them both back in. Loki was asleep again before Thor had finished wrapping himself about him.

++

The next time Loki awoke, he was alone.

For a wild moment, Loki felt so disconnected that he thought he’d dreamed the whole and that it was actually Friday morning and he was still planning to head to Midgard, to try and find someone to fuck to try and distract himself from Thor… _Thor._

He rolled and, before he could shake the bleary sense of wrongness from his mind, two things made it abundantly clear to Loki that he had not, in fact, been dreaming: the cotton t-shirt rucked beneath his hips as he moved across the mattress, and the ache through his jaw, thighs and _ass_.

Loki sucked in a quick breath, huffing it out again almost as fast, as a laugh rippled free. He’d fucked Thor-- _no_ \--he’d first sucked and swallowed and _then_ fucked Thor, and only after he’d been finger-banged nearly cross-eyed.

Covering his face with his hands, Loki let out a short burst of euphoric giggles and smothered the sound against his palms, his merriment seeming as piercing as a scream with the memory of the rain-drenched hush filling his head.

He wriggled slightly against the crumpled cotton beneath him and wrinkled his nose as the more persistent of his aches made themselves felt, even as he smirked. He’d asked Thor, _begged_ him, to make him feel it and he _did_ … but not like his maiden voyage with his hastily lubed sex toy. That had cost him days of playtime and at least one day of careful seating choices. He knew he’d been fucked, could _feel_ he’d been fucked… but not so badly that he wasn’t already humming with it, buzzing with the fever in his blood to find Thor, sink back onto that fat dick and never climb off it again.

_Huh_. _Where_ was _Thor_?

Loki sat up on his elbows, peered at his clock and frowned. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet, they’d only had a few hours of sleep after what had undoubtedly been a very long night, and Loki wasn’t even sure why he’d woken so early… unless it was simply the absence of Thor?

He blinked, finally registering the fact that his clock was on again, as must be the Wi-Fi considering that it wasn’t just flashing 12:00 over and over like after the last power cut they’d had. 

Easing himself from the bed, Loki walked cautiously to the bathroom, admiring the fine tremors through his thighs and admonishing himself for clearly not keeping up with his squats. He turned the shower on to warm while he relieved himself, trying to not let himself dwell on the various reasons Thor might have just up and left Loki’s bed without a word.

_This was a mistake… sobered up… thought about it in the cold light of day… wrong… sick… don’t want this… don’t want you…_

He soaped himself thoroughly, focussing intently on the act of probing himself for residual evidence of Thor’s orgasm as well as for any damage, unlikely though it seemed by this point, before letting the hot spray drum against his skin for a minute or so just for the mind-numbing peace it brought him in passing.

_Of course Thor had changed his mind, it had been rage and novelty that had made Loki’s desire for him last night a reasonable, irresistible thing..._

He dressed on autopilot--black jeans and his favourite green jumper to ward off the lingering damp chill on the breeze--before he sighed and left his room.

The smell of Thor’s shower products (woodsy but fresh and so long absent from this house) assailed him at the top of the stairs and Loki froze, gaping down the corridor that led to Thor’s rooms, a hint of steam on the air and a partway open door attesting to his recent activities.

_He hadn’t run. He hadn’t changed his mind. He’d just moved, of course he had. He could be home for the weekend, but he couldn’t very well be sleeping in Loki’s bed for fuck's sake._

“Oh, Loki, my boy. Good morning. I didn’t think we were seeing you home again until tomorrow, but then your mother informs me that your brother has apparently decided to grace us with his presence also. That’s your doing, is it?”

Jerking slightly, clutching at the bannister to hide how deeply distracted he’d been to let their father sneak up on him, Loki turned to smile at Odin as he emerged, dressed in his casual weekend clothes, from his and Frigga’s central suite.

“Good morning, Father. The, ah… the weather changed my mind. I decided it was better to return to Asgard rather than risk being stranded at Midgard.” Loki smiled genially, inwardly noting how particularly worn down his father appeared that day. “Thor’s presence here is quite the nice surprise, isn’t it?”

They made their way down the stairs together, more slowly than Loki was used to for all he altered his pace to match Odin’s, frowning as he noted how his father kept one hand on the rail all the way to the bottom.

“Are you feeling well, Father? You seem a little…”

Odin scoffed, clapping Loki on the shoulder with a hand as hearty as it had ever been, moving past him to shuffle through to the kitchen in his slippers. “Between you and your mother, I find myself quite henpecked this morning. I’m fine, son, just feel as though that storm kept me from getting any real rest all night for all your mother assures me I snored all through it. He smiled and Loki felt something in him unclench at the usual twinkle beneath his father’s otherwise gruff exterior. “It’s nothing a few pancakes can’t put right at any rate.”

Loki grinned mischievously. “You start cutting the fruit, I’ll make the batter, and if Mother catches us, I’m saying you made me do it.” 

It was a familiar routine; for as long as Loki had been old enough to wield a frying pan, he and Odin had been teaming up for sneaky pancakes when Frigga wasn’t looking, each blaming the other when caught. He would miss times like these dreadfully.

He let Odin’s soft-voiced babble wash over him as his purported father relayed the apparent damages done to the house and grounds during the night, the gazebo apparently nothing more than soggy kindling now, as he turned to face the thankfully unspoiled contents of the refrigerator. Fetching ingredients for the batter, he had his back turned to the rest of the kitchen, affording him a measure of protection as a deep voice broke through his ruminations.

“Morning, Father. Oh good. It would seem that I’m just in time for Loki’s notoriously delicious, if unsanctioned, pancakes. Happy homecomings indeed.”

There was a clink of ceramic on the marble countertop as Loki turned, desperately smoothing his features into an insouciant smirk as he turned to face the room. His eyes were helplessly drawn to where Thor stood, barefoot and freshly showered, an old t-shirt and jeans salvaged from his room --slightly too small and laundered into visible softness--straining over his muscles as he leaned against the counter, arms crossed before him, coffee mug in hand, and Loki’s brain just fell away, lost beneath a landslide of echoes of the night before.

_Thor... scathing as he accused Loki of desperation, lip curled back into a snarl as he slammed Loki back against the Plexiglas, eyes ablaze as he crushed their lips together._

_His own fevered whimpers filled his ears, his mouth full of Thor’s taste, of Thor’s hungry groan as he jerked Loki back up, seizing his mouth to swallow his cries... Thor’s smile warming him -- smug and beyond satisfied at the reality of Loki’s own satisfaction –- right up until he’d had to shatter them both, breaking their bubble and fleeing the scene like a shamefaced Cinderella… the drumbeat of thunder chasing him home, lances of misery striking at him through the darkness… Thor stepping from the shadows like all of Loki’s longing made flesh, only better, because it had been REAL._

_‘Loki, are you – ARE YOU SURE?’_

_‘Thor, if you don’t fuck me now, I will KILL YOU...’_

_The weight of Thor, atop him, inside him, the overwhelming actuality of being taken, inch by steady, thick inch until Loki combusted all about him, ecstatic to know he’d done the same to Thor in turn as they kissed and rolled together in bliss..._

_‘So, so beautiful… My Loki.’_

Loki swayed, blinking, and wondered if his cheeks were as red as the heat simmering in his blood suggested. He swallowed as he forced a tight smile.

“Well, you remember the first rule of _Pancake Club_ , yes?”

Thor nodded, winking at Odin “I do, indeed, I was also assured last time that ‘snitches get stitches’ so if Mother arrives, we none of us have any idea where said pancakes came from.”

Odin toasted Thor with his teacup, and Thor lifted his coffee to his lips, seeming utterly tranquil in the midmorning light until his eyes met Loki’s, and then his lip curled and his smile turned promissory and _hot_ as Loki’s breath caught across the space between them.

Thor was a far, far better actor than Loki had ever given him credit for, his eyes briefly promising sin and ecstasy, the spark of it gone before he’d closed those spectacular lips over the edge of his mug, expression pleasantly innocent in its absence.

“Ah, Thor, I thought I heard your voice, darling. Welcome home. Frigga stepped into the kitchen via the doors out onto the sun deck, a curl of misty breeze following her in, the damp chill on the air settling Loki’s blood back to a normal temperature.

Loki carefully set the batter ingredients back in the fridge with slow, casual movements, fetching a punnet of blueberries to go with the fruit Odin had chopped, resigning himself to having to eat them with porridge now, after all, steeling his mouth against the smile that lurked there at Frigga’s lifted brow, seemingly not even slightly taken in.

He crossed the room to stand facing the coffeemaker, almost shoulder to shoulder with Thor as he busied himself with his own cup, pretending to not feel the current sizzling between their skins and turning his head just enough from his task to meet Thor’s gaze. 

Thor was _not_ subtle. 

That wasn’t to say he was staring at Loki like someone who’d spent time balls deep in him and would greatly like to repeat the occurrence but, as he watched Loki set about his morning caffeine fix, the smile that graced his handsome face and the softness in his eyes was all for Loki, open, easy love obvious in his expression.

“I’m glad you’re here actually, sweetheart, I really need to discuss something with you now I think of it, so why don’t we just step into my parlour so I can consult my diary for the day and then we can have a good talk, hmm?”

Thor’s eyes crinkled at the edges as he cast a quick, apologetic smile towards Frigga before settling his focus back over Loki, the hint of contrition still lurking in his eyes as he answered, somewhat curtly, “I’m sorry, Mother, perhaps later. Right now I’d like to address why Loki believes us to not be brothers.”

Loki choked on the sip of coffee he’d been attempting to swallow, his watering eyes full of accusation as he coughed and stared at Thor, who continued brusquely, “I see now what a terrible brother I’ve been, and I’m ashamed of myself, I am. Because for _months_ now, Loki has been trying to tell me, and it’s taken me far too long to realise that. But if he’s trying to tell me it’s because he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to about it--because gods know I’ve left him high and dry this past year or so--which means you sure as hell haven’t told him, or me, and yet _I_ believe that _he_ believes it utterly, and I want to know _WHY_?”

His voice rose to an almost roar at the last and Loki quaked where he stood, watching Thor’s jaw clench as he glared at their-- _his_ \--parents, spying the moment Odin flinched by the narrowing of Thor’s gaze, a negation catching at the back of Loki’s throat as Thor’s fury glittered in his eyes.

He’d have paid good money in February to let Thor off the leash, his temper a glorious thing in defence of others and downright orgasmic now as he shouldered Loki’s hurt as his own, and yet Loki wasn’t sure he could _bear_ to see it.

“Thor, _please_ ,” he whispered and, to his credit, Thor drifted immediately down from the boughs, arms crossing over his chest as they both leaned against the counter, eyes flicking between his parents, his own ire prickling again despite his entreaty to Thor as he noted their perfectly calm expressions.

Frigga’s eyes were slightly damp, but she moved across the kitchen to sit shakily beside Odin at the table, a hand resting on his shoulder for support and Loki felt almost as though she had slapped him, her allegiance evident no matter how beseechingly her gaze fell upon him.

“You’re… you’re not even going to deny it?” Loki croaked. Thor’s heat pressed along his side in an instant and Frigga blinked rapidly as she watched his shaking fingers engulfed by Thor’s, squeezing supportively as Odin lowered his eyes to the table top.

“You’re my son,” Odin stated hoarsely.

“Well, I have neither of your blood types so I’m either a by-blow of just yours, or just hers, or neither of you and you’re _still_ lying to me--so which _is it_?”

“You’re _ours_ , Loki--it doesn’t matter about blood. Your father--”

“He’s not my father!”

Frigga recoiled, rapidly blinking wet eyes again, with even Thor startling at Loki’s side as the words ripped free of his throat, hurt boiling to the surface once again.

“Then am I not your mother?” she whispered tremulously and Loki squeezed his eyes tight shut.

“You’re not.”

Thor’s breath stuttered beside him and Loki knew, more than with what they’d done only hours before, he’d now basically told Thor that he was nothing to him, that what they had was nothing. He wanted to be angry with Thor for forcing this conversation when he wasn’t ready, for making Loki denounce his own love with the shadow of Thor’s fingertips at his hips and thighs, but he’d needed to let the rage and hurt out for so long, and now finally the truth was in sight.

He watched a ripple of hurt crack the calm façade of the woman who’d raised him, watching her more closely than Odin, so he was taken by surprise when the story began “You know the history of our company, started by your grandfather--my father, Bor--and defended, rigorously by myself, your mother and the board during the… unpleasantness a few decades back.”

Loki’s fists clenched at his sides, the segue jarring on his already blown nerves, his father’s ‘war stories’ so tediously familiar that he didn’t doubt that both he and Thor could recite them in their sleep.

“Yes, during the time of imminent economic ruin for not just Asgard but likely all nine realms, you fought off hostile incursions by the Jotuns and prevented a likely worldwide financial crash. We are aware, father,” Thor said in coolly polite if mildly longsuffering tones.

“What you are _not_ aware of, is that in the run-up to the battle, we attempted to seek a truce with Laufey and the others down at Jotunheim, in both an attempt to soothe his ruffled feathers and dissuade him from his more aggressive tendencies. Also,” he paused, something like distaste fluttering behind his weary expression as he sighed, “It placed me in an ideal position to groom informants within his inner circle, with the intention being to stop Laufey before he could intentionally trigger such fiscal disasters as the World Security Council believed him capable of, and stop him we did.”

Loki blinked, his view of _Aesir Incorporated_ ’s history-making prevention and the overall defeat of the finance world’s worst villain swiftly altering to realign Odin from cavalry rider to instigator, unsure whether he was shocked or impressed to find his seemingly smudge-free father figure to be more opaque than previously suspected.

But what had that to do with his parentage? Why would they keep from them that Odin had been essentially smuggling information out to the WSC all that time?

_Oh._

“Information wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim back then, was it? Who am I, then? The son of some secretary turned informant? Did you have to _woo_ them into turning against Laufey and his insidious ilk--is that what I am? The outcome of your _undercover_ work?

“You’re our son,” Frigga echoed, tone shivery with suppressed tears, and their existence made Loki even more furious somehow.

“What more than that?” he snapped, and Odin straightened, his expression regal and Loki almost hated him then, for treating the dissolution of his very life with the same dignified conviction Odin summoned to decry industrial espionage and the like.

“During the months of trying to foil Laufey before he could begin his offensive, I convinced and enlisted a good amount of his inner circle to turn themselves over to the WSC. For all I would not change it now--the damage his deliberate collapse of the markets in Jotunheim would have been great indeed, just his minimal efforts have left them with a recession that has lasted for almost as long as you both have been alive--I do regret that many of my endeavours were made beneath a flag of truce. But where my conscience pained me, their infrastructure and that of the other eight realms survived his best efforts and so I would do it all again, even though the cost was great.”

Loki sneered to hide the ripple of agony that rolled through his bones at the thought of his being foisted upon their family, that he was the penalty Odin had felt compelled to pay.

“One of my greatest allies in the fight against him was someone who didn’t even work for Laufey--his mistress--and whilst the Security Council agreed to expunge any wrongdoing from her record, she came to me for assistance, angry at the bad hand she felt she’d been dealt, insistent that her future happiness lay in my power.”

Thor shifted uneasily next to him, and Loki’s eyes flew to Frigga’s subtle wince, her own eyes fluttering shut for too long a beat and Loki’s lip curled further as he believed his theories proven before Odin could finish spinning his tale.

“So you what? _Comforted_ her in her time of need? Oh such great benevolence, Father, I’m surprised you don’t have a mention of it on your charitable deeds list.”

“She called me one day,” Odin continued, eyes far-seeing as though lost in the past once more, “and said that it was an emergency, that she needed to meet with me as a matter of the greatest urgency and, being that Laufey had just been killed in custody, as you all know from the reports, stabbed by his lieutenant for dooming them all to his downfall, I was justifiably concerned.”

Loki scoffed, shifting from foot to foot with impatience, wanting to be done, purged from the family already, stepping away from Thor as his warm hand sought to clasp his once more, needing to stand solitary as the edges of his world warped and bent about him.

“I met her at a little café on the state border. She said that she had been ruined, that she was tarred by the same brush as Laufey for her association with him by some, cast out as a traitor to him by others, so I had brought her money on several occasions, hoping rather than believing that she would spend it wisely.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Frigga broke in, her tone almost harsh as she corrected Odin, tears in her eyes, her face twisted in sympathy and frustration both, and Loki was thrown, the feeling of a woman scorned decidedly lacking from the moment.

“If I’d met with her in September as she’d wished, I could have saved us all a great deal of suffering, her most of all. But I didn’t.” Odin sighed heavily, a decade dropping over his shoulders in the space of a heartbeat as the recollection of the woman (that Loki could only assume was _his mother)_ burned at some central point that still troubled him. Loki watched with his tongue caught between his teeth as Odin wiped sweat from his upper lip with a shaky hand.

“I met her that day, at the agreed time, with money enough that I hoped to set her up for at least a month or so should she decide not take the job offer I also had for her here in Asgard. A fresh start. I could have changed her whole life if only she had let me.” Frigga’s hand squeezed Odin’s between hers. “But instead she changed our lives forever.”

Loki’s heart fluttered in his chest like a bird too scared to try its abruptly opened cage door, licking his dry lips, unable to shape the questions that still burned there.

“When I joined her at our usual table, I was surprised to see she wasn’t alone. She looked ill and tired, and I could tell by the way she was shaking that she was suffering most severely from the symptoms of drug withdrawal,” Odin finally met Loki’s eyes, “as was her newborn son. Laufey’s son.”

Loki’s blood seemed to freeze in his veins.

_Laufey’s son._

When he’d been a child (before he’d learned to worship Thor), Loki’s hero worship of his father had been a point of high amusement to his parents. His homework, his written, oral and even art assignments were all skewed to show his father saving the world, Superman facing down the Jotun villain who sought to steal all the worlds’ money for himself, cashing in on disasters he himself had facilitated--his father, the _hero_.

He’d even sort of given a presentation on Laufey once. It had been part of a debate on whether it was nobler to retreat or keep trying in life, heavily censuring Laufey, of course, but praising his partner, Baugi Gilling, and Laufey’s own son Byleistr-- _oh gods, did this mean he genuinely did have a brother, who wasn’t Thor--_ because they’d somehow dragged _Jotnar Industries_ back up out of the darkness, out of love for their company and in support of their workers, which overall comprised the entire state.

He’d argued that they stood at opposite ends of the spectrum, the partner and the son representing everything that was good about refusing to give in, refusing to let their people fall to ruin, and Laufey representing everything about refusing to ever step aside for the good of others, sticking to his guns and finding ways to save yourself amidst the destruction of all around you. Not that it had actually saved him, of course. His partner in crime had gleefully confessed, having realised he’d be inside for life as it was, and because Laufey was just that unspeakably unforgivable that it was worth it, it seemed, to kill him.

Loki blinked, slow and abruptly exhausted as he gazed back at the tearful expressions of his… 

_Ah, not his._

He shook his head slightly, clearing his throat.

“Laufey’s son?” he prompted, huskily.

“She wasn’t well, as I said. She was not able to hold you because of her shaking, and--well…”

Odin stopped as though an axe had felled the rest of his sentence, seeming genuinely surprised when Frigga continued for him “We had lost a baby ourselves, your sister, only a few years before, and Thor was at home with me, healthy, hearty and safe. It was only human nature for your father to pick you up.”

Loki was reeling, two different universes colliding to clash before him when Thor’s hoarse voice broke through his abstraction to ask, “We--we had a sister? Why--you’ve never said…?”

Odin’s chin dipped, and Frigga answered again, squeezing both hands around her husband’s now.

“Hela. She was--it was just after you were born, Thor. We never knew until then, but she was very sick. We had no idea until it was too late. She’d always been so…” Frigga smiled, eyes looking inward even as tears spilt down her cheeks, “…but then she was gone. There was nothing we could do for her, even had we known beforehand I don’t think we could have saved her. Our time together was so precious but so, so _short_ that I couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t _think_ about it. I shut all her things and her pictures away, and I poured everything I had into you, Thor. It was the only way we knew how to survive her loss. And then suddenly there was Loki.”

She beamed at him, the same smile that had greeted his first bike ride without training wheels, the first Mother’s Day card he’d made her himself, the dinner she’d made him on his eighteenth birthday and ice sliced through his heart once more.

“I picked you up,” Odin agreed, voice quiet beneath Thor’s harsh breaths beside Loki, his world’s edges warping, too, if nothing like as badly. “You were small, shaking and suffering, and I held you, horrified that I had unknowingly helped her poison you with whatever she’d put into her body. She told me who your father was, that you were but a few weeks old. She took the money and the folder I’d been foolish enough to leave on the table, and she walked out.”

He lifted a hand from Frigga’s to rub it over his brow, something too akin to shame on his face to let Loki’s heart settle back into a normal rhythm, even as part of him ached for how grey his father looked “To this day Heimdall still regards it as his greatest failure. He saw my face, the shock, I suppose, and instead of preventing her from leaving, he rushed to my side, giving her enough time to get to her car and drive away.”

Loki reared back as though struck “Oh, is that it? She ditched me and you didn’t manage to catch her, otherwise, you’d have never let her dump me on you in the first place?”

“I should have gone after her. I will always regret that I didn’t--and not for the reason you think. You were an innocent child, abandoned in my arms, and in that moment I didn’t think of her wellbeing at all, just yours. All I could see was how unwell you were, how much you needed me, needed _us_ , and so I had Heimdall fetch your mother, your _real_ mother.”

Frigga’s smile twisted. “He sent Heimdall to fetch _me_ ,” she corrected, awkwardly, “and I understood it at the time, I did, that what your father meant was for me to come and take the baby, take him somewhere safe, someone like the authorities, whilst he went after your… _birth_ mother. But when I got there, your father was holding you, and you were so sick and shivery, and you needed us _so much_ and before he’d even escorted me to the car, I knew I might have trouble letting you go. By the time we reached home, I knew I _never_ wanted to.”

Swallowing a few times, Loki ignored the tears he could feel swimming in his eyes, and tucked his quivering fingers behind his back, dodging sideways again to evade Thor’s hand and ready support “So, what? You just _took m_ e? As a fill-in for your own lost child? Or did you buy me from her? Did she ever even _try_ to come back for me?”

Odin closed his eyes, and Frigga broke his gaze to wipe her eyes, casually keeping them lowered as the silence went on, and on, _and_ on.

“ _TELL ME!_ ” The scream tore itself free without permission. His throat burned even more than his eyes and he surrendered briefly to Thor’s arm turning him towards his body and hitched a few unbidden sobs against Thor’s chest before pushing him angrily away a moment later. Loki swiped a hand beneath his eyes, _furious_ as he rounded on his still silent parents.

Odin looked pale, sweatier and tenser than Loki had ever seen him. His voice wavered slightly as he haltingly began to speak. “By the time we had located her--the internet wasn’t as easily traversable as it is now--it had been maybe two hours or so. We reached the motel and she… she didn’t come to the door. Then, when we looked through the blinds,” Odin heaved a heavy sigh, “she was on the floor. We called the paramedics but she was gone. I’m sorry, Loki. It didn’t--I don’t believe it was intended as suicide. She’d used some of the money for shopping--food and clothes--but the drugs… It was an unintended overdose, Loki. I’m sorry, my boy, I’m sure she would have come to her senses in time.”

_Wonderful. The bastard love-child of a junkie who didn’t give a shit about him enough to not use when pregnant, and the most-hated man of the 21_ _ st _ _century._

He felt Thor’s hand rub gentle circles between his shoulder blades and spots danced before his eyes before he remembered that he needed to breathe in as well as out.

_Dead. My biological parents are both dead. AWFUL and dead._

“At first we just kept you here, hired nurses, consulted our own paediatrician,” Frigga broke in, slowly sinking back into her seat where she’d apparently half-risen before Thor had grabbed for Loki, “but after a few days the police wanted to us to hand you over to social services and--we just couldn’t.”

“So, you did just _take_ me, then? I wasn’t offered to any grieving grandparents or eager foster parents waiting their chance to raise a baby of their own? Finders keepers, was it?”

Odin’s palm slapped down against the wooden table top as anguish distorted his features. “Why do you twist our words? There was nothing underhanded, merely understated. We didn’t want the press hounding us, and so the adoption was drawn up very quietly. She… your birth mother was survived only by her brother, and we gained his blessing early on.”

“You bought it, you mean?” Loki interrupted, seething again as Odin simply nodded.

“He was… not dissimilar in his habits from his sister. We asked for his permission and he gave it, but demanded payment for his continued silence on the subject, a fee we gladly paid to keep you healthy and with us, _our_ son.”

Loki walked back to the coffee machine, pouring himself a fresh cup for no other reason than to keep his shaking hands busy for a second “And where is this paragon, my _dear_ uncle? Did he never wish to see me?”

He could tell by the length of the pause what the answer was and he put the mug back down for fear of shattering it against the wall.

“I believe he passed a few years ago, a little before Thor left for college.”

“Dead _and_ he didn’t give a shit about me. Delightful. So I’ve no family at all then--they’re all dead?”

A hurt noise slipped out past the crumple of his mother’s face “Loki, _we_ are your family. You have a mother, father and brother who love you! Your name, your life, your family all began here, with us. Blood makes no difference, you are _my_ child, and I love you no matter wh--”

“My name?” Loki narrowed his eyes at Frigga’s sudden apprehension. “You named me, then? What was it before you adopted me?”

_Please don’t be Laufey Jr, PLEASE don’t be Laufey Jr…_

Frigga bit her lip, but it was Odin who answered, his voice almost a whisper “She had yet to name you when she… passed.”

Closing his eyes, Loki counted his heartbeats, a trick an old guidance counsellor had taught his when his temper would get the better of him as a child.

_She didn’t even care enough to name me… I really am nobody, then._

“You could have told me from the beginning. Why didn’t you?”

“We were going to--”

“When?” Loki spat at his mother, too angry to heed her cringing away from his expression, “I spent all of my birthday _waiting_ , sure that it would--it _must--_ be the day that you’d deem me adult enough to be trusted with the burden of my own identity--but no! What were you waiting for, or did you simply never plan on telling me?”

“We were advised to tell you as young as possible,” Odin ground out, “but you were so innocent, and Laufey’s crimes so fresh in the eyes of the world and you… you already looked so like him. We thought if we could ground your identity as part of _us_ , as _our_ family, we could lessen the blow when you found out you were adopted. We thought we might not even tell you we knew your biological parents, just wait until you were ten or twelve and introduce you to the notion of being adopted. We thought then we could explain the rest once you came of age, as you said.”

“Oh yes, it all sounds very well-intentioned,” he sneered, “If you ignore the fact that you followed through with absolutely _none of it_.”

“The older you got, the more you looked like him. You are his very _image_ at times, and you’re so smart-- _too_ smart, it’s seemed--it started to attract notice. We tried to steer you into practices that didn’t automatically bring Laufey to the forefront of people’s minds, but you were so invested in what your father was doing, what Thor would be doing, where you fell in the great scheme of things. We tried keeping you close by, keeping you from the schools where the legacies would be, boys like Thor raised on the expectation of succeeding their fathers--all of whom would all recognise him in you on sight--and then you began acting out, and we just thought that the time wasn’t right--”

Loki’s jaw had dropped as Frigga had tried to soothe him, snapping shut with an enraged _click_ now as he clenched his fists at his sides again to prevent from tearing out his own hair or smashing his way through the contents of the kitchen.

“Mother, are you _SERIOUSLY_ trying to use my childish misdeeds as an excuse for never telling me the truth about _WHO I AM?_ You couldn’t tell me because I was acting out? I was only ‘ _acting out_ ’ in the first place because I _never_ felt _good_ enough-- _Thor_ enough--to make you proud of me, to treat me the way you treated him. I, I cried for _days_ when you wouldn’t let me go to school with him, and it was because you were _HIDING ME…?”_

Frigga rose and moved around the table, and Loki shot backwards, ducking around Thor as he placed his bulk between Loki and a touch he seemed to instinctively sense Loki currently could not _bear_. Thor caught her outstretched hands before they could reach him.

She whispered Thor’s name, low and furious, but Loki had dodged away to stand at the other side of the kitchen, scrubbing his hands over his eyes, torn between attack and retreat as he rocked on his feet, unable to look Odin directly in the face as he stuttered unsteadily, “You… You are my son. I wanted only to protect you from the truth…”

“The truth? What? Because I… I… I… I’m the son of the monster that bankers tell their children about at night? That I’m the doppelganger of a man, who you hate so much that you were afraid to admit that I was any part of your family, your _empire_ at all?”

“ _Don’t_ …” Odin whispered, and Loki trembled so hard, so _hurt_ that his teeth chattered as he bared them, tears dripping from his chin as he evaded first Thor and then Frigga as they each held out imploring hands to him.

“You know, it all makes sense now! Why you favoured Thor all these years... Because no matter how much you claim to _LOVE ME_ , you could never have a son of Jotunheim at the helm of the heart of Asgard! I…I … _Father_? Loki froze, hand outstretched, unmoving and unhelpful, unable to spur his limbs into action as he watched the last of the colour leech from Odin’s unhealthily grey cheeks as his eyes fluttered shut and he slumped over the table. Loki was in motion before his father could finish his sickening topple sideways from his chair.

“THOR, HELP.”

Thor had spun at Loki’s first expression of alarm, and reached Odin first, faster on his feet for all his great size, a hand roughly shoved beneath their father’s head just at the moment it would have struck the floor. Loki caught their mother as they each tumbled to their knees at Odin’s other side. 

“ _HEIMDALL!”_ Thor roared, and Frigga’s hands fluttered across his chest, riding the tiny gasps that still rose as Odin weakly wheezed, unconscious. “HELP US!”

Loki had already fumbled his phone from his back pocket, the quick reply at the other end of the line sounding miles away. “We need an ambulance, my father--he--he’s had a heart attack I think?”

Frigga nodded jerkily, dripping tears onto Odin’s beard as she cradled him. Heimdall entered the room at a run and shoved them all to the side to begin chest compressions.

“Doctor Eir has been most concerned about his heart and stress levels this past year. She… she wanted him to take a few months off but he… but he…”

Loki watched Heimdall practically dwarf his father as he bent over him to administer CPR, his devotion to the man he’d served for so many years noticeable in the tiny tremors in his fingers even as he got on with the act of trying to save Odin’s life.

Loki answered the questions by rote, his mother filling in the details he had--yet again--not been privy to until now, the weight of Thor’s hand at his back as he kept a clasp on both Loki and their mother as though afraid they might suddenly fall before him as well. There were sirens in the distance before Loki had finished giving all the details to the kindly operator at the end of the line and Thor all but flew to the door to grant entrance to the paramedics as they rushed to treat a silent and groggy, but now thankfully open-eyed, Odin.

Loki fled to pack a bag, his father’s robe, slippers and pyjamas all thrown into a holdall along with the book from his nightstand, his spare reading glasses and every box of medication (and there were _many_ ) hidden in the sanctity of his parents' personal bathroom.

Passing his room, he couldn’t quite fight the urge to grab a few of his own things, not much, his wallet, kindle and chargers, not to mention one of many envelopes he’d kept stashed at the back of his wardrobe. It contained a few thousand dollars, swiftly hidden in the inside pocket of the leather jacket he seized for himself along with his shoes, ducking into Thor’s room for things for him, too.

When he got back downstairs, he shoved the bag into his mother's hands as she tearfully apologised to them for there not being room enough for them all to go with Odin in the ambulance, Thor shushed her gently and Loki cut her off as she promised that Heimdall could keep pace with them if need be. “Mother, no, should, gods forbid, that Father does need an operation, it would be better to have his own doctor there, would it not? I mean no disrespect to the on-duty surgeons but it’s the weekend, and they won’t know Father like she does.”

“Absolutely,” Thor concurred, voice hoarse with withheld tears, “Heimdall should fetch her immediately. Loki and I can be in a car in minutes. We’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

Thus absolved of abandoning him on what felt like the worst day of his life (and that had been _before_ shrieking at his father until he near killed him), Frigga tearfully climbed up into the ambulance alongside Odin’s abruptly frail form, clasping one of his hands in hers as the doors closed behind her.

“It’s ok, guys,” a smiling paramedic assured them as they stood there swaying, shoulder to shoulder, as Heimdall all but screeched out of the drive en-route to collect Odin’s favoured physician, “we’re going to take really good care of your dad, I promise. Hospital’s the best place for him right now.”

Thor said something in grateful, polite tones as the paramedic hopped up into the ambulance and pulled away but Loki was already twitching his fingers through his pockets in search of his phone. He frantically opened his _Uber_ app to see if there was anyone nearby before cursing and moving to dial the cab company his mother always used. 

His knees all but buckled under the weight of his relief as the operator assured him they had a car not three minutes away. Thor slid an arm around him to squeeze Loki’s hip as he turned to bury his face in Loki’s hair, taking long, deep gulps of air that made Loki quake, his brother, his protective buffer against all the bad things in life, was tangibly distressed and shaking at his side. 

They practically fell into the backseat as the cab drew up. Loki only shifted across as far as the middle seat, buckling in there as he waited for Thor to do the same, affirming their destination to the driver in a tinny mutter over the speakers before he cast himself into Thor’s arms as best he could in their cramped and restrained positions.

“It’s my fault, it’s all _my fault_ ,” he choked as Thor’s hand roved up and down in his spine in heavy sweeps, as though his touch could wipe away the sobs convulsing through his form, “I shouted at him, _I shouldn’t have shouted at him_ , Thor…”

“No, _NO,_ Loki.” Thor pushed Loki back to take him by the shoulders and shook him lightly when he wouldn’t lift his head to meet Thor’s gaze. “You heard Mother. His doctor has clearly been worried that something like this might happen. She told me some time ago that they were worried he might have angina but when I asked about it she said everything was fine. Then you came down from their room with all those meds in that big bag for him, and I think… I think maybe they were trying to keep it from us.”

A hysterical laugh broke free past the sobs and Thor dragged him close again, a quivering palm cradling Loki’s skull as he pressed their foreheads together. Loki’s tears tumbled onto Thor’s cheeks as he gulped and tried to steady himself.

“This morning, everything that’s happened today, it’s too much, he was just too sick to keep secrets, let alone to discuss them openly. He--” Thor’s voice pitched dangerously towards a sob and Loki moved to comfort him the best way he knew how, pressing their lips together, heedless of whether the driver knew them or their family, swallowing the hitch of Thor’s breath as he wrapped his arms tightly about as much of Thor as he could reach past the seatbelts.

It felt as natural as the deep breaths they strove to take in time with each other, soothing themselves by fighting down the tears and terror until only their closeness remained, trading soft, restorative kisses as the taxi sped towards the hospital.

“You didn’t do this,” Thor murmured as he brushed his lips over Loki’s wet eyelashes, pressing hard, fast kisses over his cheek and down to his mouth, “it was the stress of it all, _you didn’t do this_ …”

Loki didn’t argue, let Thor press the words he needed to believe against Loki’s skin, absorbing the strength of his belief along with his love as he clung close, dread drowning every other emotion until Loki felt like a shell of ice had settled over him, brittle and unforgiving, waiting to find if his worst imaginings were yet to be proven true.

He paid the cabbie once they reached the hospital, not looking at his face in case it was one of the regulars, not needing that added layer of stress on top of everything else, trailing a few steps behind Thor as he approached the front desk and asked after Odin’s whereabouts.

They were shepherded to a waiting area that was apparently not far from where they were treating Odin, ushered into none too comfortable plastic chairs to await the arrival of their mother or a nurse or just _any information whatsoever._

“Whoever invented waiting areas clearly never had to wait for anything themselves,” Thor muttered,  dragging Loki’s chair directly alongside his so he could wrap his arms back around him, lips at his temple as Loki shuddered and leaned into his strength once more.

“It’s one of the circles of hell I think,” Loki husked back, arms twined about Thor’s waist as though whoever might come would take him from Loki as well, “if we’d not stolen his cars we’d likely have earned our way to immediate answers and reassurance.”

_And they’d have likely healed him with just a thought if you hadn’t damned the both of you by lusting after and perverting the love of your own brother…_

Thor hummed in reply, swallowing hard. “He said something about taking time off next year, about waiting for you to be in college before whisking mother away to distract her from her empty nest… I think they probably wanted him to stop work so this wouldn’t happen.”

Loki blinked as another hot rush of tears scalded its way past his lids.

_He wanted to see you out of the house first--no, he wanted you to be ready, independent and able to handle the truth--the truth that you’re not his and you never were--the truth he was afraid to tell you because he loves you and didn’t want to hurt you--the truth you screamed at him for sharing, the love you shoved back in his face…_

“Thor, what he said, what they said about me, my parents--”

“ _Not_ , not now, Loki. Ok?” Thor was shaking again as a woman in pale blue scrubs and a sympathetic smile came towards them down the corridor, “It doesn’t change a thing, anyway.”

Part of Loki’s brain wanted to drop his jaw and laugh hysterically before punching Thor square in the stomach. _It didn’t change a thing?_ Loki’s entire world was in pieces, and Thor was all set to handwave the whole of it away and…

“Hello, you’re Odin Alfodr’s sons?” The woman--a doctor, going by her ID badge--reached out to shake each of their hands in turn as they stumbled up to their feet. “It’s nice to meet you both. I’ve been working with your father since he arrived and he’s doing a lot better now. I imagine he must have given you both quite the shock before, hm? These attacks are often very nasty to witness, but as long as we catch them quickly, they can be very easy to treat.”

“Attack?” Thor echoed hollowly, and Loki was hot on his heels. “Was it a heart attack, then? You said he’s better now? Does that mean that he’s _better_ or just stable or--”

“Loki,” his mother’s voice abruptly cut in as she appeared along the corridor, “ _breathe_.”

Thor broke away to hug her as she neared them, practically lifting her from the ground in his relief to see at least one of their parents, setting her down next to the doctor as they faced each other. Loki and Thor took strength from the serene if watery smile on their mother’s face.

“I was just coming to find you both to tell you what this nice doctor told me. They believe your father had an acute angina attack, which we didn’t think was possible with all the preventative medicine he takes, but these last few months at work have been very wearing.”

“Will he be alright, mother? I don’t know anything about this angina. Does he require any surgery or some sort of transplant?”

_Oh, Thor. So bighearted he’d likely hand his heart straight over without querying whether Odin truly needed it or not._

The doctor smiled, clearly used to the frantic need of a family member to find anything, _do anything_ that might help a loved one. “Doctor Eir was just reviewing my notes as I stepped away and we may yet decide on a different course, but for now it seems that your father will benefit the most from being on blood thinners as well as the statins he has been on. That way if we’re not happy with the results a little way down the line we could certainly look into a graft or stent if need be, but really, he’s bounced back remarkably well just from the initial injection. I think there’s a great deal we can do to help him get past this.”

Something in Loki that had been standing rigid, holding him steady, buckled, and the floor rushed up to meet him. He never hit, of course. Thor kept to his promise and stopped Loki from falling even as he reeled with relief himself. He hauled Loki close, propping his limp form against his hip as Thor used one hand to tilt Loki’s chin up to meet his sparkling eyes. “It’s alright, Loki. He’s going to be alright.”

Loki sobbed once and buried his face in his hands, wracked with sobs as he tried to burrow his way inside Thor, the lessening of his terror for his father somehow setting all his other emotions adrift as they all bobbed together, vying for his focus as he was rocked between relief, agony, guilt, joy and nausea. He could hear his mother asking Thor to release him, and so he clung tighter, not ready to leave his only haven for the unbearable turbulence of reality. Loki shook in his clasp as Thor’s palm cradled his head, his words a soothing babble as Thor tried to reassure his mother that he had this, had Loki, and was well able to support him.

He felt as though he swayed there in Thor’s arms for an hour or more. His feet felt both numb and ablaze all at once as Loki held so still that Thor’s chest rising and falling beneath him felt like drifting on a vast ocean, the waves soothing him as his breaths slowed and his heart rate settled somewhere closer to normal as Thor, the doctor and Frigga continued talking softly amongst themselves.

“Would you like to see him?” The words cut through Loki’s precarious sense of calm.

_Would you like to see him? Will HE want to see YOU?_

Thor’s abruptly croaky voice had Loki lifting his head. “C-can we? I don’t want to exhaust him or anything, I would just like…?”

The doctor was still smiling that sincere and sympathetic smile, and Loki wondered distantly how different these last few months might have been had he encountered her instead of Nurse Perky when undergoing his initial existential crisis. “Of course you can, although it’d be better for him if you each went in one at a time and didn’t stay too long. He’s eager to see you, I know, but he does still need his rest, particularly if we’re looking to get him home to you guys in the morning.”

She moved away down the corridor, and Thor followed her as though hypnotised, trailing Loki by a sudden iron-like grip on his hand, their fingers sliding together as Loki fell into step beside him.

_(Because if they were going then FINE, but he would NOT consent to be dragged along like a toddler.)_

Frigga walked on Thor’s other side, throwing them oddly concerned glances as they went, but he supposed that was to be expected, considering his little outburst and the entirety of the day thus far.

They reached a row of private rooms with windows that looked out onto the corridor, a bank of chairs along the wall, and Loki could see Dr. Eir standing in one of the rooms, clipboard in hand. She spoke smilingly to its occupant and Loki felt his heart rise into his throat, happy when Frigga stalled them a little way before the door.

“Thor, I need to talk to you for just a minute. Maybe we should let Loki go in first, hmm? Then you can go in afterwards while I talk with Dr. Eir?”

Loki’s instinctive response was to say _no_ and wait until Thor had gone in, or maybe sneak in when Thor was with Odin, despite what the doctor had said, suddenly afraid to be alone with the man he’d all but killed that morning.

Thor released his fingers and Loki’s hand dropped back to his side, empty and abandoned.

Loki could see, for just a moment, a bolt of yearning flash across Thor’s face, no doubt in response to being still kept from Odin’s side, but he nodded slowly and stepped away, falling into step with Frigga once more as they moved back along the corridor, leaving Loki behind.

“I’ll be back in just a minute,” Thor rasped, and Loki nodded back at him, oddly choked up to watch Thor step out of sight.

Loki moved closer to the pane that separated Odin’s room from the corridor and stilled, gasping. Odin was sat up, pale and attached to a drip, smiling, weakly and Loki’s blood ran cold as he took a sharp step backwards.

He looked so _little_. So small and fragile with his skin an odd papery shade so unlike his usual robust aura of vitality, even as his hair had silvered with the years and… Loki’s reflection gaped back at him in the glass, pale with horror, the apparent spitting image of the monster they’d tried to hide him from for his entire life.

_Oh god, oh god I did this, I nearly killed him, the stress of having to tell me nearly killed him… Having to tell me that I’m the son of the man he hates most, the guy he dedicated his career to destroying… after years of trying to keep it from me, from everyone, they kept it from me, they kept_ me _from Thor, they tried to keep the shame of it off me, and all it’s done is bring shame and stress and nearly fucking KILLED Father, and it’s hurt me and Thor and them and they don’t deserve it, I was so awful about it, about not telling me, the truth wasn’t worth this, wasn’t worth losing Thor, wasn’t worth all this pain and stress, none of it was worth this…_

Loki took another step backwards, directly into the breeze that blew softly down the corridor from the window of the furthermost room, smelling like apple blossom and prickling Loki’s skin as he stood, tears tracing the fine tremors running through his lips as he crushed them together.

_He wasn’t worth this._

Thor would be upset, angry even, and that was fine. It would give Frigga someone to fuss over when she wasn’t building Odin’s strength up again. Someone to coddle and coo at as they mourned the idea of him, the lost sibling whom they’d tried but failed to fit into the broken places left by their actual, missing child. 

Loki walked quickly along the rest of the passage and darted into a fortunately empty room (though no occupant would have stayed his course at the point) and looked out of the opened window, only one storey up. He swiftly flung a long leg over the sill. 

Mentally thanking his long-dead bastard parents for their input in his long limbs, he swung the other leg across and, grateful for the lack of window beneath him, carefully lowered himself down until he hung at arm’s length and then let go, stumbling into a rose bush as he fell the remaining few feet to the ground.

He was up and across the lawn in seconds, making his way along the hedges framing the grounds, back towards the main entrance where, only a few short months ago, he’d escaped courtesy of the taxis at the rank just across from the bustling hospital. His pulse quickened at the sight of a line of cars, for all he would gladly have fled via the bus stop also only a few metres away. He was almost frantic in his desperation to be gone.

“LOKI!”

He froze, only a few paces from the first cab, the driver starting his engine in readiness as Loki turned slowly to see Thor framed by the main doors, seemingly also frozen.

“Oh Thor,” he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

“LOKI, _NO_!” Thor burst into motion, his long legs eating up the distance between them as though he were a jungle cat racing for its prey, but Loki had only been but a step or so away from his goal.

“Go, now. _Please_ ,” he said firmly as he slammed the cab door behind him and the driver pulled away as Thor neared the opposing kerb.

“Faster, go _faster_!” Loki cried and the sound of it almost blocked Thor’s pained yell from behind them, the word _no_ drawn out for several beats as Thor attempted to catch them, running behind the car for a minute. Loki’s eyes met Thor’s tortured, anguished expression in the rear-view mirror as the taxi gained speed and pulled away.

_I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’ll be better this way, I love you, I’m sorry._

“He the ex-boyfriend or something?” the cabbie enquired, tone all genial solicitousness for all his brows drew together as he glanced back to where Loki slumped against the seats now, panting and broken.

“An ex-something,” Loki murmured, and the driver hummed as though that made sense, eyes still concerned as they repeatedly flashed to him in the mirror.

“You, ah, wanna tell me where you’re headed?”

Loki sighed, forced free of his impending panic attack by necessity. “I’m sorry, I would have asked first, but there wasn’t the time for it. Do you mind if this is quite a big fare? I have the money, of course…”

The driver’s brows rose even higher as Loki parted his wallet to flash the several hundred he’d stashed in there. “Sure kid, I’m not booked or anything, so it’s up to you. Where would you like to go today?”

Loki finally remembered to buckle himself in, tipping his head back against the headrest as exhaustion crashed over him, burying his misery for another time.

“Take me to Jotunheim,” he said softly and closed his eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry both for the angst and any mistakes, I had to make a last-minute switch after it was betaed so any errors are totally my bad.


	16. Part Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki seeks what Jotunheim has to offer and the author hopes you'll handwave anything that sounds too hinky concerning corporate hijinks because I have no clue how this stuff works and am literally making it up as I go along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may note it now says that this will be 18 parts long, I think that's right but the last parts are still in beta so it might change, but I'm feeling certain enough to assume at this point so *inserts Loki's taadaaaaa here* I hope you enjoy part 16 of 18 cos there's not much left to go now <3

**Part 16:**

It was a Saturday, and late afternoon by the time the cab dropped Loki off outside the main offices of _Jotnar Industries_ , the blazing blue insignia down the side of the sharp spire still bright for all the company’s many years of tarnished reputation, courtesy of Loki’s own wretched sire.

Straightening his shoulders and, wishing he’d had the foresight to dress better, Loki strolled casually into the lobby.

He approached the front desk with a coolly polite smile, intensely watchful as he gauged the receptionist’s response--the first curl of warm greeting freezing into astonishment before being strangled down into a surprised inquiry.

_Ah, literally the living embodiment of the sickening scoundrel they’d all love to forget, then. Lovely._

“Hello,” Loki greeted her smoothly, “I can tell by your expression that you’ve already guessed why I’m here. I’d apologise for my lack of appointment but, you see, until this morning I had no idea I was related to the bastard. Would you be so kind as to allow me to wait in a side office or some such thing until you’re able to alert my--well, I imagine he must be my half-brother--yes. That sounds about right, don’t you think? Well, if you could inform him that I’m here and would like to see him as a matter of some urgency, I’d be most grateful.”

The receptionist stared at him as though in a trance for a moment before visibly collecting herself “I’m--I’m afraid that Mr. Frost does not usually come into the office on the weekend,” she stammered, making no effort whatsoever to pretend to not understand who it was he claimed as his sibling.

_Frost. Ditched their heinous father’s name for his mother’s maiden name, that’s right. Smart move._

“I’m terribly sorry--” Loki peered over the desk for a glimpse of her name badge, “--Greip. I would have visited during standard office hours, but as I previously mentioned, I’ve only been aware of my--family connections, shall we say--for the past six hours or so. Having discovered myself to be the son of the most despised man in modern corporate history, I find I would really feel a great deal better about it if I could at least meet the only good thing going for this rather repulsive side of my heritage. Now, shall I wait in a side room somewhere or would you prefer for me to remain here in the waiting area and let your co-workers think the evil fucker himself has risen from the dead?”

++

He was escorted (swiftly enough to feel quite smug) to a really rather nice office with luxurious sofas placed in an accommodating square about a coffee table under the light of the large windows looking out onto Jotunheim’s financial district. It was such a nice office, in fact, that Loki wondered if he’d actually been taken to ‘Mr. Frost’s’ own office to await the man himself.

He helped himself to some cucumber water, left thoughtfully in the centre of the table, and sat down, ready to wait all night if need be to see the only remaining blood relative it seemed he had left.

According to Google, Byleistr Frost was a tallish man in his mid-forties, as famed for his ice blue eyes and blinding wall of sparkling white teeth as he was for his tenacity in trying to rebuild the city and the company his father had been so eager to lay to waste for his personal gain. That was not who entered the room roughly fifty minutes after Loki had settled in, white-haired and white-faced, staring as though Loki were a spectre sat before him.

“It’s true, then.” Baugi Gilling (VP) looked a little too like Odin had in the moments immediately before his angina attack and Loki had to steel himself into remaining calm and still, on the outside at least, as he held the pale and sweating older man’s gaze.

“That would depend on what they’ve told you, I imagine,” Loki murmured politely, rising and moving forward, a hand proffered to shake, “but if it was that your former partner had an illegitimate son who was waiting in what I think may well be your current CEO slash protégée’s office, then yes. It’s true.”

Gilling placed trembling fingers in Loki’s for the barest second before pulling away. He dragged his pocket square free and mopped his brow with some desperation, and Loki took pity on him, turning to pour him some iced water as well, before steering him to sit with a compelling hand at his elbow.

Loki knew Baugi Gilling’s name from Odin’s tales of old; it had been his investigations into Laufey’s wrongdoings that had spurred the World Security Council into action, bringing him on-board as the Brutus to Laufey’s putrid Caesar, breaking his heart in the bargain but leaving Jotunheim with at least one honest industrialist. 

“I’m sorry,” he wheezed as he allowed Loki to gently seat him in one of the armchairs, looking a good few decades older than the sixty plus years Loki knew him to have under his belt. “It’s just that you look so, so _very_ much...”

“Like Laufey? Yes, I’ve been told.”

_Only this morning, but yes, I’ve been told._

The door whispered softly as it swung against the plush carpet, the faint susurration the only sound to warn Loki of a presence at his back and he looked smoothly over his shoulder, expecting security, but surprised to find his newly acquired half-brother pushing past him with some agitation.

“Uncle Bau!? Are you alright?”

Loki stepped aside to watch the man he’d initially been hoping to see, Byleistr Frost, sliding to his knees to rub soothingly at the older man’s shoulders, his worried eyes fixed on Gilling’s face.

“I’m… I’m alright, B. Just more startled than I’d expected to be is all.” He took a long drink from the glass Loki had poured him and smiled grimly at the two younger men watching him closely. “I’m _fine_ , really.”

“You were supposed to wait until I’d seen him, you idiot.” Byleistr’s tone was affectionate, and Loki stored the information away, the bond between the two men worth noting.

“Greip said he looked so much like him--well, as you can see--and I was curious, I confess.”

Byleistr rose from his crouch and turned to Loki with an upraised brow. “Yes, I suppose he does.” He mused, his eyes as carefully dismissive as they were inquisitive as he stepped forward and offered his own palm outward to Loki.

“Byleistr Frost, although it’s clear you already know that, and you are?”

Loki took his hand, shaking it firmly and politely as he held Frost’s gaze. “Loki. Loki Alfodr,” he stated simply, wincing as Gilling choked on his water.

“As in…?” He spluttered past his pocket square as he dabbed at his eyes and mouth in turn and Loki nodded slowly, suddenly exhausted again, and tired of distressing old men.

“As in,” Loki confirmed quietly.

Byleistr blinked a time or two more than was usual but it was the only outward sign of any incredulity, and Loki found himself oddly satisfied by the notion that his would-be brother had a better poker face than his notoriously sparkling smile would imply.

“Won’t you take a seat?” he asked, employing said smile now and Loki smirked at him, moving back to take his place on the sofa and taking a casual sip of his drink as Frost watched him before moving to sit in the armchair closest to Gilling.

Closing the ranks. Unfortunately for them, there wasn’t enough of Loki left unbruised for such a display to make a dent. “So, you are Odin’s son, and yet somehow Laufey’s as well. Perhaps you might explain?”

Loki took another cool drink of his water, not playing for time so much as he was readying himself for what he imagined was going to be a lengthy conversation, and he had already screamed himself hoarse once that day.

“I apologise for the shocking nature of my appearance here today. I felt I had been left with no choice, you see. It was only this morning that my family felt able to be honest with me about the fact that I am adopted and who my parents are.” He inclined his head. “Were.”

Byleistr steepled his fingertips, a technique Loki had once adopted to steady his hands when anxious. “You say Laufey is your father, but you are clearly not of my mother, and they were still together up until his trial proved him to be not the man she’d married. You’re… what, twenty-one? Twenty-two?”

“Eighteen,” Loki corrected with a sympathetic smile that twisted into a wince at the angry spark in Byleistr’s ice-bright eyes. It wasn’t often your dead, traitorous villain of a father could still shock you with his wrongdoings, but it seemed he’d managed to leave them all a surprise in the shape of Loki.

“So young,” Gilling breathed, taken aback. “But that would mean...” His eyes clouded over and his focus turning inward. “Farbauti,” he concluded, shaking his head sadly, with a distasteful twist of his mouth and some tiny part of Loki ached, wondering if he’d just heard the name of his mother, for all he despised the very thought of her.

Byleistr frowned. “Who?”

“Laufey’s mistress, I believe, though I did not know her name before,” Loki added, keen to not be left on the sidelines lest they team up against him.

“She was only his mistress until he got married,” Gilling shot back, before visibly deflating, “or at least, that’s what they each told me. Why I should have believed it in light of all that followed, I… well. But the timing, your _age_. That means--”

“I believe I was born shortly before he was murdered, maybe a few weeks before, my father said.”

Byleistr shook his head, looking angry. “And what has Odin to do with any of this? Why would he knowingly take in a child of the man he personally helped take down? How would he even be in a position to know you were Laufey’s son?”

“Apparently my birth mother was an informant during the investigation,” Loki said coolly, fighting to keep all inflection from his voice. “It seems she felt Odin owed her for her turncoat status and demanded compensation. On the last occasion when they met, she fled, leaving me in Odin’s arms at their meeting place before blowing a large part of said compensation on the drugs that ended her life only a few hours later, before F…Odin could track her down.”

The ice cubes in his glass chimed against each other as his hand trembled and he nonchalantly placed the drink back on the table, unable to help a flush as he noted Byleistr tracking both the movement and the tremors in Loki’s swiftly folded fingers.

“I believe there are police reports should you wish to consult them,” he added huskily. “But by the time child services were ready to take me, Frigga had become quite attached to me. They’d lost a baby before my br--before their other child, Thor, was born and I was apparently quite unwell, due to my birth mothers prolonged drug use. She, _they,_ didn’t want to part with me.”

“Oh, _Farbauti_ ,” Gilling muttered, rubbing a hand over his brow, visibly disconcerted.

“And you discovered this just today?” Byleistr asked gently. “Why didn’t they tell you sooner--had they meant for you not to know?”

Loki shifted before he caught himself, briefly angry before he cut himself a little slack for the _incredibly long day_ he was having. “Several months ago I figured out that I couldn’t be biologically theirs, maybe one or the other of theirs, but not both. I waited to see if they’d tell me when I reached eighteen, but they didn’t, and things came to a head this morning when, ah, I was angry that they’d kept the truth from me for so long and I ended up screaming at Odin until he collapsed. He had to be hospitalised.”

He ceased his generosity towards himself, _furious_ to find he had to shut his mouth with a sudden _snap_ to halt the flow of words as they burbled out of him.

“Oh, _kid_ ,” Byleistr murmured and Loki _hatedHatedHATED_ him for the pity in his tone.

“Is he--your father--is he alright?” Gilling asked gravely and Loki nodded, not trusting himself, feeling hideously, achingly raw and _young_ all of a sudden.

“It was angina, he’s--he’s ok, they say he can go home tomorrow… but I can’t.” This at least drove the loathsome sympathy from his gaze.

“Um, what?” Byleistr gaped. “They kicked you out?”

“No, I…” Loki closed his eyes. “I just can’t, and that’s fine. I’m of age, and I’ve been preparing for this for some time. It’s not just that they lied to me for so long--and had to be essentially _forced_ into telling me the truth--it’s that they deliberately hid me away because of who my father was and because I apparently resemble him so.”

Gilling’s face twisted in horror. “They _hid_ you?”

A laugh gurgled out of Loki before he could prevent it. “Sorry, no. Not literally. They didn’t keep me locked away in a tower or anything. It’s just, they kept me from all the schools and places my brother went and I could never understand it.” Sighing, Loki let himself rub a hand across his brow, trying to stave off the headache that came with repressing his feelings so hard he fancied he could hear his skull crack beneath their weight.

“It just always felt like I was lesser, somehow. I know now that they took me in and meant to raise me as their own, but I don’t think they understood how much of a cuckoo in their nest I would grow to be. So I was never allowed to do as… as my brother did or go with him where he went, no matter how much I wept and begged and missed him. Because he always went as a legacy, and everyone from teachers to parents would eventually have spotted the resemblance, because they had all known Laufey, too. It meant I’ve barely known him--my brother, and I, I _love_ him, and I could never understand why we were treated so differently, why he was their golden child, why it felt like they would barely allow me to be near him, when it seemed in many other ways they wouldn’t let me be away from them.”

Gilling’s face pulled tight, sympathy and judgement both tugging at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “It seems they only wanted the best for you, my boy.”

Loki nodded. “Oh, I’m certain they did. I know now that they loved me just as much as, as Thor. But it doesn’t change the fact of who I am, and who I may never be again. They hid me because they were afraid that one day I would be seen as Laufey’s son, not theirs, and that day has come. I… I am not their son, and I am not his brother. I am, for all I would rather it was not so, Laufey’s son. So I have come to you.”

Byleistr blew out a short, loud breath, his hands held up as though to stall Loki’s words in the air. “Kid, I’m not looking to be anyone’s big brother. Hell, I’m old enough to be your father…”

Loki couldn’t help the curl of his lips, amusement rippling from him openly as he took in Byleistr’s seeming horror at the concept of being possibly responsible for an unwanted little brother. “I know that. I’m not looking for a brother. I’m not looking for family. I have one-- _had_ one--and if I can find a way to keep it, I will.” Loki swallowed, stamping out the smoking, hopeful embers beneath his feet as he heard Thor’s plaintive cries behind him as the cab drove away. “But right now I’ve burned one bridge too many to do that, so what I’m looking for right now is an ally.”

Byleistr sat back, one leg crossed elegantly over the other as he also casually folded his arms across his stomach, seemingly as lackadaisical as if Loki had suggested they watch paint dry for fun, all but for the gleam in his eye, and Loki felt a new hope ignite at the core of him.

“An ally?” Byleistr repeated coolly.

“Mm.” Loki nodded, taking a strategic drink, and swallowed past his nerves, keeping Byleistr’s focus on him. “Sorry, Yes. You’ve been fighting with your back to the wall for years. _I’ve_ been fighting for a seat at the table, ready to play number two or fifty or whatever number they’d have been willing to give me in a place that already had its next number one already picked out, and that’s fine. I never wanted to unseat him, just to be _seen_. Now here I am, and all I want to do is turn a loss into a win. For me and, I think, for you too.”

Byleistr’s teeth bared in a smile close enough to Loki’s own that he felt briefly discomposed as an eyebrow was imperiously raised at his words. “Oh. So--you think you can help me?”

Ignoring the broad mockery, Loki lifted his own brows and spread his palms wide. “Who better?  Your reputation is founded in being Laufey’s son but being nothing like him. Instead, you’ve been determined to put right what he did wrong. I’ve been accepted to all the best business schools in the nine realms. No matter where I go, I’m going to be a rising star, one _to watch_ and that was all before I realised that I wear the face of a monster.” 

Loki paused to allow himself a shark-like grin of vicious intent, such as he never allowed to be seen on his face in public. 

“I cannot _begin to_ tell you how much more I enjoy winning when people look at me and _dismiss_ me. It is going to be positively ecstatic to watch them cringe from my face and then salivate over who raised me. I’m the best and worst of it all combined into one, and I can tell you right now that I intend to ride roughshod over anyone who stands in my way, but I have no intention of ever being akin to Laufey in anything more than looks.” He raised his chin, holding Byleistr’s gaze and refused to feel warmed by the approval he saw gleaming in their depths. “I think I could do a _lot_ of good going forward, and, I think if we played it right, my return to the fold could be your saving grace as well as mine.”

Gilling cleared his throat, smiling tightly, one finger raised apologetically as though he hated to interject. “The board has been trying to force B out for years. They feel they can do better without a family member at the helm.”

Byleistr sneered. “Which would be fine, only they have opposed me on every major decision that would benefit the company in an ethically sound way for the past two decades. They’re Laufey’s lackeys in every way but the most obvious, the ones that would have got them caught.”

Loki found himself caught between an exasperated eye-roll and a disgusted lip curl and realised that both men had, to some degree at least, accepted him, or at least the possibility of him, into their midst and something deep in his chest _ached_ to know it.

He cleared his throat, a corner of his lip turning upwards helplessly as he leaned forward into the cocoon of camaraderie that had so unexpectedly settled over him. “Anyone with any sense knows you’re the force driving _Jotun Industries_ back up into the world’s good books, and dinosaurs tend to go extinct with good reason. I’m not afraid of them. If you’re looking for someone to apply themselves directly to your leadership and the betterment of the company against outrageous odds, then I am your man.” 

Loki sat back again, his face calm but determined, desperately trying to not let his feeling of destiny finally clicking into place throw him off his game.  “I’m telling you now because I understand it’s not a decision to be taken lightly, but I think you’ll find you’ll want me as much as I want in by the time I’m even partway through my MBA. My father did everything he could to dissuade me from following in his and Thor’s footsteps, right up until my teachers sang my praises hard enough for him to see that I’m a hell of an asset in the making and he _finally_ got onboard.”

Byleistr nodded slowly, calculations spinning behind his eyes. “Why, though? Why do this? It’s plain to see that you love your family very deeply, no matter how angry you are now. You’ve no need to throw your lot in with ours for all you may be right about the good that you could do us. The board has dogged my every move for years, they currently have no quarrel with you or yours.”

“An ant has no quarrel with a boot,” Loki interjected, withholding the drawl from his tone by just the skin of his teeth and wincing inwardly at how haughty it still sounded. It was correct, that said, and he stood by it, arrogant or not.

Byleistr’s teeth flashed, and Loki let himself grin back at him for a second before he smothered it down again, noting that his would be sibling seemed to value a little healthy pride. “That’s as may be, but the boot in question here would be the Allfather.” 

Loki shifted in his seat slightly, still angry enough from the revelations of that morning to want to hiss and smash things at the reverent nickname the business world had bestowed upon their _saviour_ , as Byleistr continued, 

“Side with me--with us--and they won’t fail to bring their full force against us both. There’s nothing to stop us being allies. I would welcome it, in fact, uniting our companies through you would still benefit us both in time. You don’t have to leave _Aesir Incorporated_ to do that. You don’t have to drop your family--your whole _life_ \--because of all of this, right?”

A smarting sort of tickle sprung to life at the back of Loki’s eyes and he swallowed carefully, trying to hold in the wail and rage that wanted to build in the back of his throat.

_It hadn’t been his choice, he’d started by trying to find a way to stay theirs, to not ruin his relationship with Thor, he’d never, oh god NEVER, expected Thor to be the one to mow their reality down as he overrode all of Loki’s inner warnings, all of his common sense, kissing him, touching him, WANTING him… Even if Loki knew how to come back from that, he didn’t know how to come back from THIS, knowing he would be forced to follow a path where everyone stared at him, where everyone knew why Thor was heir apparent, and Loki had been kept in the dark. Even if he could fight his way free of his shame of wanting and somehow warping Thor beyond all recognition, his vile sire’s legacy would always be there to drag him down… better then, to lean into it._

Clearing his throat, Loki caught the ready sympathy on Gilling’s face again and welcomed the steadying spark of anger it regained him in the pit of his stomach. “It’s not that I want to. I burned a bridge, a vital one, because I didn’t understand why they were fighting so hard to keep me out of sight. I thought they found me lesser. I don’t know what lies ahead of me in that regard, I don’t know that I can repair what I… what was broken,” 

He took a steadying breath, imagining the air pushing down the swell of feelings rising in him as he filled his lungs, 

“But I do know that even had they been honest with me from the start, I always would have been two steps behind Thor and I never would have felt able to tear myself free of his shadow, shackled into kid gloves because of our… relationship. Fighting for you will enable me to take the gloves off and prove myself if you will but let me.”

Gilling smiled, his first of genuine pleasure since Loki had met him, chuckling as he sat back in his chair. “Well you certainly sound like Odin, and if you have even one fifth his business sense and decency, I confess I would rest easier at night.”

He sighed, and Loki caught the thread of tension as Gilling sat back, looking for all the world like a man perpetually denied a cup of tea and a nap and Loki was surprised by the bolt of longing he felt for his father, blinking rapidly as he took another sip of his drink.

Frost grunted, something like guilt quickly stifled behind an annoyed sounding sigh as he met Loki’s eyes once more. “Uncle Bau has had to be the deciding vote in my favour more times than I can count. He’s been worried about what happens when he retires.”

Loki quirked an overly solicitous brow, letting his self-assurance leak through a little once again. “Well perhaps, if I prove myself in a timely manner, we can discuss what becomes of your shares and voting rights before such time as insomnia becomes your permanent state?”

A laugh rumbled from Byleistr before he could seemingly stop himself and Gilling snorted, shaking his head even as his eyes twinkled in Loki’s direction, and Loki found himself actually wanting to be a part of this team, to have them continue smiling and laughing at his frankly snotty behaviour.

“Well Loki, you’ve certainly given us both a lot to think about, and I think it’s safe to say that, whichever way you choose to go about it, both _Jotnar Industries_ and myself look forward to having a relationship with you.”

Loki let himself slump slightly, too tired and oddly optimistic to be able to hide what he felt in that instance, sitting back with his palms resting loosely atop his thighs as he smiled at them both in turn. “You won’t be disappointed, I promise,” Loki said, too raw to hide the relief and Gilling abruptly frowned, his somewhat bushy eyebrows pulling together as he caught the hint of Loki’s exhaustion as it leaked slightly through his posture.

“You told us you could not go home, I believe?” he asked searchingly, the old eyes abruptly piercing, and Loki felt the weight of the man’s assessing gaze as he seemed to peer into Loki for more than just a simple yes or no answer.

Loki shook his head, trying to summon words that sounded less like he had a stick with a spotted handkerchief knotted over the end containing all his valuables, silenced before he began as Byleistr added (far too smoothly), “Yes, it would be good to know where to reach you, just in case we have to arrange any future business.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Do try to not run the company into the ground in my absence, gentlemen, as I fear both espionage and Hollywood are not precisely wise life choices for you both at this time.”

Byleistr grinned widely, his nose crinkling in a manner not nearly as photogenic as his famed smile and Loki felt as though he had abruptly cracked through a shell of some sort.

“Was that snobby Asgardian teen speak for ‘don’t give up your day jobs’?” he barked between sniggers and Loki grinned back, hope glowing from the ashes once more.

“You appear to not require a translator. That _will_ come in handy for the future.” He circumvented with a wink before returning to the subject lest he break down and thank them for actually giving a damn. “I plan to stay at a hotel, either here or in Midgard, for the time being. I need to decide how best to move forward with my choice of college and such, and a hotel will be perfectly fine until I need to move and set up a base of operations. I can, of course, stay in contact should you need me to, and I will leave you this magical number that leads directly to a device that I keep upon my person so I can, in fact, be reached, ‘ _in case we have to arrange any future business_.’”

Byleistr quirked a brow, “And you do, _of course_ , have the money for said hotel stay, you little shit?”

Gilling huffed a laugh, and Loki let his grin twist a shade snarkier, satisfied that Byleistr could hold his own against him at least. “I have money. As I previously mentioned, I’ve been readying myself for this exit for quite some time, I simply hadn’t realised that it would be under the circumstances of having to assume an entirely new identity.” His smile cooled somewhat and all scoffing tone dropped from his voice as he nodded, almost to himself. “I will adapt.”

“Well, if you’re considering Midgard then you should use my penthouse suite at the Plaza. They hold it for me year round, although I never use it this time of year.” Gilling waved an airy hand, face scrunched up in seeming distaste. “Too warm for my blood, by far. But that means it’s just sitting there, empty, and you could take it until you decide where you’ll be headed or until the semester starts, whichever suits you best, really. It makes no difference to me. That said, I do hope you’re considering Midgard, I may be a Jotun born and bred, but I graduated MCU just a few years ahead of your father, as did both Laufey and B, here. I would highly recommend it, and I can’t help but feel it would, ah, add a certain weight to your professed objectives were you to follow in _all_ our footsteps, considering that you plan to then exceed them.”

A drawstring pulled tight at the back of Loki’s throat, and so he smiled to disguise the glimmer of tears he felt at the front of his eyes.

“Whilst that is a remarkably generous offer, Mr Gilling--”

“Bau. Call me Bau. No one calls me Baugi and Mr. Gilling makes me feel old, and you wouldn’t want to make a poor old man feel any more aged than he has to, hm?”

With that, Gilling--Bau--made such a great show of pouting and fluttering his eyelashes that Loki was so forcibly put in mind of both Stark, and his own mother when trying to manipulate a loved one with guilt and guile, that something like fondness crested over his smile before he could stifle it, and he caught Byleistr beaming at the exchange from the corner of his eye.

“Alright then, _Bau_ , thank you for the use of your name, and your kindness, but I couldn’t possibly--”

“Ah, but we _insist_ ,” Byleistr cut in, his voice as smooth as the velvet above the iron fist with just a hint of force peeking out behind his smile and Loki couldn’t help but smile back at its usage.

_Oh, I like that, I can learn to use that._

“And, if I am less than swayed by said insistence?” he asked. He coolly and carefully stilled his features as he watched a fine tremor run through Bau’s hands as he folded them before him.

“Don’t be fooled, Uncle. I saw his face when you mentioned MCU. He’s halfway decided already.”

There was something oddly compelling in Byleistr’s eyes, not just in trying to make Loki capitulate but in trying to make him see _why_ and Loki remembered, once again, Gilling’s sweating, shaking, and frightened form as a devil of his own past rose from the sofa before him.

Loki smiled at Bau “You’ve got me. Midgard would be my first choice, but I still have yet to see if the nature of my… _issues_ with my brother can yet be resolved. He’s only midway through his time there and, as I said, I may yet have burned one bridge too many but,” he dipped his head, licking his lower lip, unaccountably nervous as he faced down kindness, not conflict, “it would certainly be nice to have some of the pressure lifted while I attempt some form of resolution. Thank you.”

Bau positively glowed with the sort of delight Loki was used to seeing when his father was presented with a doughnut carefully hidden from his mother and the likeness brought a tremble to his palms as he reached out to accept the hand that Gilling offered him.

“You won’t regret it, dear boy. I’ll pop by when I’m next down that way. We can have lunch and talk about your choices if you feel MCU isn’t for you, though I caution you now, I can argue its manifold rewards until the very cows come home.”

Loki grinned and nodded. “I look forward to it,” he told him as they shook hands, and found, oddly enough, that he meant it.

++

Byleistr escorted Loki down in the lift, seeing him down to the car that Bau had insisted they summon for him, Midgard still quite a drive away, though less than to Asgard.

“Thank you for humouring him. He’s an absolute beast in the boardroom when needed, but at heart, he’s a very gentle man who loved our, ah, father far more than he deserved.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, a nerve ticking at his jaw, Byleistr leaned against the elevator wall looking suddenly a great deal older than he had, smiling and charming, in the sun-filled office above.

“It _hurt_ him. I was only in my teens when I realised everything was going wrong somehow, in my early twenties when he was killed and all that time, Uncle Bau was there for me even though he knew he couldn’t save dad from the monster he was becoming, even though Bau helped your father take him down. He has _always_ been there for me, and I can see it in his face now, looking at you. Looking at _you_ but seeing _him_ there--I can see him reaching out already.”

Loki nodded, ready for what he felt was coming and so was unsurprised when Byleistr stepped off the wall to stand barely a pace before him. “I want to believe you. I want to believe _in_ you and everything you’ve said here today, and I’ll be disappointed as fuck if you don’t come through, but that’s not the point. That sweet old man has treated me like a _son,_ and he’ll treat you that way too if you let him, and if you let him down, I swear to all the gods that I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. We clear? _”_

Nodding again, Loki smiled, trying to convey how very much he understood the need to eviscerate wrongdoers for the crime of slighting a loved one in a simple look, getting at least some of his point across going by Byleistr’s satisfied smirk as he stepped back again.

“We’re clear,” Loki affirmed gruffly and Byleistr huffed a soft laugh.

“Goddamn, kid, you terrify the hell out of me, but I can’t help but feel we’re gonna do just fine together. Go on, you’ve had a helluva day, and so have I, to be frank. Go chill out at the Plaza. I’ll call you in a day or so, see how your ‘bridges’ are doing, alright?”

Loki shook his hand in assent, stepping through the now opened doors into the lobby and murmuring some sort of inane platitude as they parted. He saw himself out of the building with his head held high and legs that felt they might splinter from beneath him at any given moment.

All in all--Bambi legs notwithstanding--Loki felt pretty good, or at least he did until he walked out through the revolving door into the cool evening air only to find Tony Stark leaning against the wall.

“Ahh, we meet again, Mr. Bond.”

Loki blinked, honestly surprised into stillness, both by Tony’s appearance and the fact that he appeared to have upgraded Loki to male nicknames at last.

_It didn’t matter, he had nothing to say to him and nothing he might say that Loki would care to hear._

Shaking his head, Loki moved forward to where the driver of the car service stood politely holding the door open for him. “If you’re reporting back to Thor, you’ll have to run home like a good doggy. I’ve nothing for you--”

“He’s ok. Your old man, I mean. He’s fine, worried about you, but otherwise recovering nicely.”

Loki’s hand met the car door frame with slightly too hard a grip, the impact searing its way up through his knuckles as he stiffened before nodding slowly. He tried to make himself move, pictured himself getting into the back seat with nothing more than a curt nod to where Tony still stood, but found himself unable to shift forward any more than he was able to stop the words flowing past his lips. “How,” his voice creaked and Loki wet his lips before continuing, “how did you know I was here?”

Tony all but glowed with smugness, still not pushing off the wall although he crossed his arms tighter across his chest as though hugging himself with glee.

“I’ve got a gal on the inside, just waiting for the day I --how’d you put it--claim my crown? Anyway, she’s my partner in… well, not crime, but I don’t know, in sneaky stuff for sure. Anyway, Pep knows _everyone_ worth knowing in any corporation in all the world, and _that_ means knowing every PA from here to kingdom come, and the vine has been positively _abuzz_ , y’know, since Laufey’s ghost up and walked into _Jotun Industrie_ s today.”

Loki had to swallow a few times before he could reply, unexpected stabs of hurt rising from that surprising place where he’d found he somewhat valued Thor’s friends and his own, separate relationships with them. “Did you _know_?” he eventually ground out, looking back over his shoulder in time to watch the most spectacular scowl break across Tony’s face.

“ _No_. I mean, _c’mon_ … I _should have,_ as it fucking happens. Obie’s got a fucking pic of him on his desk--all handsy, big smiles with your old man--I mean the shitty one, not your real dad, and I guess I always thought you looked familiar, but I just figured you reminded me of someone.”

Loki raised his eyebrows, unaccountably relieved. “Morticia Addams?”

Tony grinned, firing a finger gun at him with each hand. “Got it in one.” Fighting the urge to smile back at him, Loki nodded again and moved to get into the car.

“Y’know, Thor’s gone half wild with panic looking for you. He’s _crazy_ about you, you know that, right?”

Straightening, Loki turned slowly, one arm propped atop the door to keep him from wobbling as he took in Stark’s still-casual stance, his breezy tone and watchful, darkly intent eyes.

“He told you,” Loki stated, quietly.

Tony nodded. “Yup. You ok?”

Another pang lanced through him at the actual care evident in Tony’s voice even as he fought to keep his posture loose, his words casual, and Loki remembered the look on his face in the club, horrified but determined as he tried to stop Loki from throwing himself into the arms of those Tony knew he didn’t truly want.

Loki sniffed, blinking rapidly and turned away. “Tell Thor… just, to take care of Odin for now, alright? I’m fine, there’s no need for him to panic.” He sat down in the car and was about to pull the door shut behind him (the driver having long since had the good sense to step away) when he found himself pausing once again, a near hysterical laugh bubbling somewhere at the core of him before he strangled it down enough to speak.

“Stark?”

“Yeah?”

Loki met and squarely held Tony’s gaze for a moment. “You said I would thank you someday…so, _thank you_.”

He would have pulled the door shut then, but Tony moved off the wall with a swift, fluid push from his hips, grinning devilishly, all trace of solemnity wiped from his expression as genuine enthusiasm and intrigue flooded his eyes. “ _SO_?” he burst out, seeming to vibrate in place, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet. “How _was_ it? Worth the wait, right? _Right?_ ”

A smile broke through the mask only just holding Loki’s feelings in check, and his reluctance couldn’t quite withhold his honest reply. “Like… the _best night_ of my life.” His smile faded in degrees as a rapid-fire slideshow hit the bullet points of his last 24 hours from rapture through to sorrow. “Followed by my worst day _ever_.”

He caught the open sympathy in Tony’s eyes before he could quench it and sighed. “Goodbye Stark.”

Closing the door as Tony tried to speak, Loki took several deep breaths, waited for his driver to start the car to confirm their destination and, tipping his head back and trying desperately to lose himself to sleep, they pulled out into the evening traffic and drove away.

 


	17. Part Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author felt a decided lack of superpowers or action sequences in this decidedly human AU and so decided that Thor's reappearance was allowed to be a little 'extra' ;)

**Part 17**

Loki sighed and listlessly stared up at the endlessly blue sky above him.

He’d been at the _Jotnar Industries_ penthouse suite at the Plaza for three days, and he’d gone over it all in his mind each day until he felt dizzy and sick, and _still_ Loki had no solution as to what he was going to do with his life.

He’d spoken with his school and explained the situation. He was of age and still able to submit his final assignments and take his exams in his newly emancipated position, (and why _yes_ , he _was_ grateful for their support at this difficult time) weaving his tale of woe as best he could with outright falsehoods and facts blended together until even he could barely see the edges anymore.

In truth, he knew it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t return to take his exams if he didn’t hurry up and make a decision. Midgard had been his only choice going forward, even when he’d been refusing to meet his own gaze in the mirror with each acceptance letter he’d thrown in the trash. It hadn’t been just because he’d wanted to be closer to Thor (although that had been a good 80% of its allure) but because it was considered the best of the best and until he’d passed through its hallowed halls, Loki could never be considered one of the best as well.

But _now_.

Loki screwed his eyes shut and deliberately rolled, his front submerging before his momentum carried him over onto his back again, spluttering slightly as chlorinated water ran up his nose before sighing long-sufferingly back up at the sky.

He was unused to inactivity, his own _parents_ having apparently feared his possible evil streak enough to keep him tied up with after-school projects from adolescence onwards, happy to keep him occupied, but never once considering if he might be _lonely_. 

Loki had spent the morning watching films, using his hunger pangs to motivate him into making the frittata they were preparing on the lunchtime TV slot. He’d then leisurely jerked off thinking about the perfection that was Thor’s smile before taking a long, unhappy, cold shower as he tried to scrub the shame and misery from his skin. He’d sulked his way to sleep for a few hours (it wasn’t the same as crying yourself to sleep because it _wasn’t_ dammit) before waking, cranky and bleary, his head full of longing and recrimination both. 

Irritated at his complete and utter lack of anything resembling headway in either his feelings towards Thor or the choices that still lay before him, he decided to fake progress by swimming laps, ticking the _self-care_ box in at least one category for the day.

He made it to precisely three and a quarter laps before even that decision unmade itself, leaving him floating, sky-gazing and hollow, wondering why he couldn’t quite seem to make himself make the choice to move on, and simply not have Thor in his life.

Loki swallowed, hot droplets running unpermitted from his eyes to mingle with the cool waters that held him aloft, tempted to let himself just sink to the bottom as he heard his breath hitch in his chest again, his heart stuttering, out of time with the rhythmic beat of oncoming rotors…

He opened his eyes.

A helicopter approached, garishly gold and red with the mid-afternoon sun dazzling along its exterior and lower, far, _far_ lower than any of the choppers that routinely crossed the sky, with the letters _SE_ emblazoned down one side.

“ _Bloody_ Stark _,”_ Loki cursed and pivoted, just able to place the balls of his feet against the bottom of the pool as he glowered upwards.

Squinting against the glare, Loki thought he could just make out the shape of Tony and--was that _Rhodey_ at the controls--in the _Stark Enterprises_ helicopter cockpit and he couldn’t help but slap his hand against the water, snarling and splashing pointlessly as Stark grinned cockily and threw him a sloppy salute.

“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE IN THIS AIRSPACE, STARK! IF YOU LAND ON THE PATIO I’LL HAVE JOTNAR INDUSTRIES FINE YOU SO HARD IT’LL KNOCK THAT STUPID BEARD OFF YOUR FACE, YOU NOSY, INTERFERING SON OF A… Oh my god--”

Loki’s enraged bellow cut off mid-curse as a sudden gleam of gold--lighter, brighter than that streaked along the side of the craft--came into view, and Loki reared back in horror.

“THOR, WHAT ARE YOU _DOING_?? DON’T YOU DARE, DON’T YOU _DARE,_ YOU _STUPID BASTAR_ \- **_NO_**!”

A shriek ripped from Loki’s throat as Thor swung himself out of the now opened side door, one foot braced on the landing skid as a rope ladder unrolled down past him, swinging violently in the air even as Thor placed his boot onto a rung and climbed out into the sky, forty-three storeys above the ground.

“THOR, _THOR!_ GET _BACK IN_ THERE!! DON’T YOU **_DARE_** … THOR, NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING--ARE YOU _INSANE_?! **_THOR, PLEASE DON’T_** _!_ ”

With his heart hammering wildly in his throat, Loki could only watch in horror as Thor swayed with the wind from the rotors, almost sobbing with rage and terror as he watched him slowly make his way down the ladder, one rung after another at a slow, steady pace, as Stark and Rhodes kept the helicopter as steady as they could, positioned above the pool.

Loki shot forward in the water, seriously alarmed as suddenly the ladder seemed blown too far to the side, swinging Thor above the patio with still more than fifteen feet between them and for a minute, Loki imagined he would hear Thor’s spine break as he struck the flagstones, or his scream as Thor simply disappeared towards street level, and Loki choked, accidentally slipping beneath the surface as he forgot to tread water in his fright.

He surfaced again, gasping and open-mouthed with relief as the helicopter seemed to allow for the breeze and corrected its position, holding Thor steady over the pool once more as he gradually made his way to the lowest rungs.

Thor paused as he reached the bottom rung, looking up to call out something to Stark that Loki couldn’t hear beyond the combined noise of the whirring blades and his own heart ricocheting off his ribs. Thor then flashed his cheerfully grinning pilots a cocky salute before smiling down at Loki as he just _let go of the ladder_.

Loki watched, unable to even scream, as Thor--seemingly perfectly sanguine and still fully dressed--straightened his legs, his feet placed together as he crossed his arms over his chest and, almost in slow motion, dropped the still ten-plus feet into the deep end of the pool. 

Thor was momentarily untethered to the world, dropping out of the sky with the sort of smirk that made Loki want to kill him (and he might yet do so) as though there wasn’t a fatal drop only a handful of metres to either side of him, as he tumbled from the air and disappeared below the water’s surface with what looked suspiciously like triumph.

Loki watched as Thor sank to the bottom momentarily, his ridiculous boots forcefully introduced to chlorine once again as they hit the tiles at the very deepest part of the pool, braced there for a moment before they pushed him back up and out, breaking the surface with an exultant roar.

Loki unfroze, lava suddenly in his veins as he surged forward.

“Thor, you _bastard_ , you foolhardy, reckless SELFISH, fucking **_bastard_**! How could you do this? How _COULD you_? You could have been killed, you could have actually _died_ you stupid, idiotic fuckwit!”

He pummelled Thor everywhere he could reach him, gulping and choking on chlorine as well as fury as he repeatedly slipped beneath the water in his efforts to slap and punch at every inch of Thor before him, turning to scream at the sky as he coughed, ducking away from Thor’s efforts to restrain him as he clumsily struggled towards the shallow end.

“And **YOU** , I take back my thanks you would be _murderer_ , he could have been _KILLED_ , you should be **ASHAMED** , _YEAH YOU’D BETTER LEAVE_ …”

Loki knew he couldn’t be heard over the rotors, but didn’t cease in his attempt to shriek some shame into Thor’s idiotic enablers, his throat near raw from overuse by the time they appeared to be setting down on a distant rooftop, his focus only broken by Thor’s hand at his elbow, his far too amused voice rumbling at his ear.

“I don’t think they can hear you, brother--”

Swivelling, Loki raised a foot to brace against Thor’s hip and _shoved_ , sending Thor staggering back, with the benefit of pushing himself several feet into the deep end where Thor couldn’t seem to follow, unable as he was to tread water in his stupid, heavy boots.

“Don’t _touch_ me,” Loki spat, actually quivering with rage, “do not _speak_ to me, you selfish, blithering _IMBECILE_ , you could have been _killed--”_

“Well,” Thor drawled, temper flashing in his eyes, bluer than ever now where the pool water had irritated them, “it’s good to know that you care, at least.”

Loki’s jaw dropped. “It’s good to… to know _I_ care? You _UTTER AND COMPLETE SHIT_ , how fucking _DARE_ you?”

“Oh, I dare very easily, thank you.” Thor beamed, at his gittish, smugly offensive best, his eyes hard for all he adopted the appearance of mirth and complaisance. “What with how you’ve deliberately abandoned me twice when you knew it would most hurt me, particularly the latter time when I literally chased your car, y’know, _begging_ you to not go and all.” His smile vanished. “A man could be forgiven for assuming you don’t give so much as a _single fuck_ about them in such a moment.” 

The rage left Loki so swiftly he could almost picture himself deflating, the wind so utterly gone from his sails that he felt inclined to just let himself sink straight to the bottom.

He closed his eyes, to hide from the unwelcome chill of Thor’s stare as much as to try and disguise the sudden resurgence of tears lurking behind his lids, spilling as he blinked, nodding.

“I’m… I _am_ sorry for that,” he said quietly, sighing inwardly as Thor’s shoulders rose higher, stiffening openly at Loki’s response.

“You don’t even deny it?” Thor, who had stood at his side and shared his rage as his parentage had been unwillingly revealed, now gazed at him as though he genuinely were the monster their parents had feared, and it resurrected a spark of rage, just enough to bring Loki’s chin back up out of the water.

“I _said_ I was sorry, I _didn’t_ agree with your idiotic assessment! In case you hadn’t gathered by the ridiculous fucking lengths you had to go to, to invade my privacy, I thought it best for us _all_ if I left and I couldn’t actually do that if I stayed with you! So I’m sorry it seemed to you like I didn’t give a _single fuck,_ brother, but given everything that had just occurred that morning as well as the night before, I thought I was doing the right thing!”

“Like you thought leaving me at the club was the right thing?” Thor took a step forward, visibly irritated as he rocked, almost knocked off balance by the water as he tried to prevent himself going under and Loki growled, as infuriated by Thor’s moronic predicament as he was flustered by his words

“Oh, for…! Thor, just get out of the sodding pool and get out of here, would you? You can go dry your precious Timberlands, and if you’re fast enough you might even be able to save the phone I’m certain you’ve been stupid enough to leave in your pocket. Just trust me on this would you? This is for the best, alright? Just get out of here, if only to save your bloody boots --”

“Oh, for… _Fuck the bloody boots!_ ” Thor abruptly, _absurdly_ roared before all but snarling, doubling over to duck beneath the surface, seeming to struggle at the bottom for a moment before rearing up to chuck first one boot, then the other up and onto the patio. Water streamed from Thor’s ponytail, and he glowered at Loki as he wrestled his way free of his denim jacket, flinging both it and then the aforementioned phone up onto the flagstones with a clatter that made Loki wince even as Thor now advanced on him through the water.

“There, the boots are gone. Are you happy now? So, tell me, Loki, how often have you been making decisions for me that _you_ thought were for the best, without even consulting me? I think I already know of a few. There’s running off on me at the hospital, there’s--let’s see--oh, there’s _also_ running off on me the night before at the club after practically sucking my _soul_ out through my dick… Hm, the rest I’ll have to guess at. How about when you decided to come to Midgard to get laid but only if you could stay away from _me_? Oh and there’s also how you wouldn’t commit to actually attending Midgard even though you clearly want to, just because _I’m_ here and--”

“YES! Yes, alright, those are all on me, and they’re all things I failed at _utterly_! So please, continue your pity party about how awful I am and how I ruined everything because I couldn’t fucking stay away from you, only this time I _DID_ manage to. I made myself leave because I thought _maybe_ I could save us from ourselves! I couldn’t save mother or father from what I am or what they did, but if I’m gone then I don’t ruin _you!_ Then they never have to know what we did, what we _feel_ because if you’d just leave me be then maybe we could actually have a chance to survive this and--”

“That’s why you ran? So you wouldn’t have to face up to what we did to our parents? Well, delighted as I am to find you’re apparently that ashamed of me, I feel you should know that Mother is already aware of all that has occurred between us.”

Thor crossed his arms over his chest, the water lapping the nearly transparent material of his t-shirt against him, gluing it there as he readily held Loki’s shell-shocked gaze.

“ _Mother knows_ …?” Loki croaked, feeling oddly faint, his head seeming to drift with the ripples around him as Thor’s stern expression softened into sympathy.

“Do you recall before you… left that mother asked me to come and speak with her for a moment? It wasn’t the first time either. She’d asked me at breakfast as well, but I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, intent as I was on discovering why you believed us to not be brothers. It wasn’t until she had dragged me somewhere more private that I understood. I believe, had she not found us in the waiting area all wrapped around each other, she would have waited for a better time, it was only that she believed that I was wronging you, taking advantage of your love of me to, ah, _exploit_ you… abusing you, in essence.”

Loki’s world tilted dangerously as he blinked, his light-headedness dissipating as ice-like fury rose to meet red-hot indignation. “She thought you were _sexually abusing me_? How, how _dare-”_

“Yes, well, I wasn’t precisely delighted by the accusation myself, brother.” Thor stepped closer, and Loki sidestepped him even as he narrowed his eyes at the curl of amusement gracing Thor’s lips. “You have to understand, she had her reasons.”

“ _Reasons_?! I-”

“Would you rather continue being furious with her with no actual information or understanding, or would you, perhaps, permit me to finish?”

Loki sneered. “Don’t try that patient _Odin-esque_ shit with me, Thor, it doesn’t suit you. Just get on with it, would you?”

Thor advanced further, treading water and using his arms to drift around Loki in a lopsided circle. Loki turned in place to scowl at him even as his skin prickled at Thor’s very nearness.

“She woke in the night, as I’m sure many did, surprised by the sound and fury of the storm. She managed to fall back to sleep several times, disturbed here and there by both the storm and father snoring, but one time, she thought she heard you shouting.”

Loki cringed so hard he nearly slipped beneath the water again, and Thor shook his head. “It wasn’t as bad as that. She’d dreamed we were each younger again and fighting and dismissed it, but just as she was trying to drift off Mother thought she heard you again, was so sure of it in fact that she came out of their bedroom onto the main landing to listen, in case you were outside, wanting to be let in.”

Pressing a hand to his face to hide the desperate urge to cry, blush and throw up all at once, Loki snapped, “Oh do get on with it, for fuck's sake, Thor!”

The water around him eddied as Thor shifted to circle him more closely, a hand briefly smoothed atop his hunched shoulders before Loki could move away. 

“I’m telling you as she told me so that you will no longer be angry with her for her conclusions. Dislike them though I did, I understand where she was coming from. You see, she stood there, something telling her she'd heard you, and the remnants of her dream saying you were hurt or angry and Mother came to the conclusion that she was imagining things. The problem was, she hadn’t actually imagined your voice, and she thinks now that her subconscious was trying to tell her what she’d heard because it woke her again, only this time it wasn’t because of a noise.” 

Thor’s mouth twisted, something like regret and humour both morphing into an expression of discomfort. “It was my boots. Mother saw them, stood outside your door where I’d left them as I entered your room, but she’s been so used to seeing them about the house that she didn’t really _see_ them, not at first. When she woke that next time, the storm was done and everything was quiet, getting light, so she went back out to the landing and looked, and this time she saw the boots and knew them to be mine, but outside _your_ room.”

Loki’s cheeks pinked without his permission. “But, after the storm? That means that we…?”

Thor nodded, gaze oddly hot as he watched Loki flush. “We were asleep by then, yes. And that’s what Mother saw when she opened your door.”

 _Oh_.

Loki’s mind scrambled for a mental image, choking slightly as he tried to picture it all from his mother’s perspective, frozen in horror in his doorway. 

_How covered up had they been when he had crawled back into bed, naked beside an equally naked Thor? Were their clothes obviously thrown about the room? Was the lube still sitting atop the sheets in plain sight?_

Correctly interpreting Loki’s expression, Thor reached out to cup his cheek, turning Loki’s horror-filled eyes to his. “It was as we always have been, apparently. I had cast off a fair amount of the sheet, as I tend to do when warm, and you had burrowed mostly beneath me as you often do, in search of my body heat.” 

Thor’s cheeks reddened. “She said the sheets had fallen away enough to be certain of _my_ nudity but remarked on the fact that I appeared to be doubling as a blanket for _you_. I don’t believe she saw enough of you for you to be any more embarrassed than we already are, but she was certain enough of the situation to begin to form some rather, ah, unfortunate theories.” 

Loki’s ire sparked back to flame, his teeth clenching as he shook Thor off, spitting, “Oh, because of course, that makes the most sense, doesn’t it? That you would--what-- _force_ me?”

Thor sighed heavily, “I confess, I was not particularly happy with her for that, but from her perspective, you went from being content and communicative to secretive and absent, often desperate to be by my side--which of course makes perfect sense now, to me--you wanted to tell me, you just didn’t know how--”

“No, I wanted to _fuck_ you, actually, and for you to never, _never_ find out that I in no way belong to you--to any of you, in fact--but please, do continue with the ridiculous conclusions the woman who is supposed to know us each _best_ jumped mistakenly to. Was her plan to ground you as punishment or is incest more of a _strongly worded lecture_ type of thing?”

Frowning heavily, Thor reached for Loki, his jaw clenching as Loki whirled out of his grasp again, each of them maintaining their slow circle through the water, it’s circumference wider now as Loki scowled across the space between them.

“Mother thought that my love for you had warped us.” Loki snorted at that, but Thor continued, “She thought your… _hero worship_ as she put it, had made it so that we somehow twisted our relationship to a sexual one, and she placed the blame at my door, because I am the eldest, and should have never thought to take advantage of your feelings, no matter what they were, whether we were related by blood or not. And so, when Mother saw us at the hospital, still locked together, she thought you might further turn to me out of stress and worry for Father, and she basically had wanted to tell me that she _knew_ and she’d _kill_ me if I continued with what I was doing.”

Loki imagined the water bubbling, _boiling_ or freezing to crack into jagged shards all about him as he snarled and briefly _loathed_ the woman he loved best in all the world. “And precisely what did you tell her, hmm? That it was me, that it was _all me_? That _I_ did this to us?”

Astonished, Thor merely gaped for a beat or so, before blinking the surprise from his eyes. “Of, of _course,_ I didn’t say such a thing. I told her what I’ll tell you now if you’ll let yourself settle enough to hear me. _I love_ you, brother, you didn’t _do this_ to me any more than I _forced you_. She may not like it, but it changes nothing. I love you, and that’s all there is to it, for me.”

Loki splashed him so hard, so _furious_ , that a veritable wave of chlorine rushed at Thor, going into his eyes, and up his nose, leaving him sputtering as Loki continued crashing his hands through the water towards Thor and roaring, incensed beyond words at his casual acceptance of the impossibility he’d been struggling with for _months_.

“You _IDIOT_ , you absolute, _obliviously thick_ , utter _FUCKWIT,_ Thor!!!! Of course, OF FUCKING COURSE I did this! I’m fucking AWFUL because I _wanted this_. I tried not to, but then I didn’t give _a SHIT_. I’m _disgusting_ because given a chance I would _NEVER_ give this up, do you understand me? That’s why I’m _here,_ dammit, I’ve been trying to _save you_ from me, from this, from _US_!”

The whites of Thor’s eyes were reddened by the chlorine to the point of looking like he might have spent the last few hours weeping and Loki steeled his heart against the image just as he stiffened his face to not respond to Thor’s look of total bewilderment.

“But, _but why_?” He choked, water still pouring from his nose and brow as he gasped at Loki.

“Because this is SICK, you idiot! I’m in love with my own brother for fuck's sake--”

“But you’re _not_ my brother!”

Loki came to a halt so abruptly that he sank, jerking himself up as the water lapped at his gaping mouth, hurt beyond words or movement. He was honestly too stunned by Thor’s casual dismissal of _everything he was_ to be able to function for a brief moment, and Thor used it to drive himself through the water to snatch him up, cradling his face as Thor pressed their foreheads tight together, gazing into Loki’s abruptly ( _shamefully_ ) tear-filled eyes in anguish.

“No, I--gods, _no,_ you _fool_! You’re my brother, you’ll _always_ be my brother! You’re my family, you’re my _world_ , you idiot, but you’re _not_ my blood and I know it’s hurt you to know you’re adopted, and I’m so sorry for that, but in all your hiding from me and being disgusted by yourself, you _knew_ we weren’t related and _I didn’t!_ I’m sorry if it hurts you but I’m fucking _thrilled_ we’re not related in that way because, for all your guilt, _I_ am the one who did this, _I_ kissed you, _I_ wanted you--”

Loki snorted, as much to break Thor’s spell over him as to object, shaking him off and floating back a few feet from Thor once more while Loki openly scoffed and rapidly blinked the tears from his eyes. “ _Yes_ , but because _I_ practically _made_ you want me, you blind simpleton. I’ve been clinging onto you and worshipping you for years, and I actually wondered, once you didn’t come back supposedly because of _her_ , if actually, it was because of _me_ , that my _crush_ had made it so you couldn’t come home to me, to _face_ me.”

The water rippled against his chest, splashing against his skin in ways that made Loki shiver even as he set his jaw, determined to not let the whisper of sensation and look in Thor’s eyes push him to more than he was prepared to give. Thor lifted a beautiful, wet cotton-clad shoulder only to drop it back again, holding Loki’s eyes apologetically, “In a way, I suppose it was,”

Abruptly striking out, Thor used a swift sidestroke to bring himself alongside Loki, cutting their careful orbit in half, even as he continued to circle Loki, their arms moving in counterpoint to one another as they slowly maintained their revolutions.

“I did stay away because I knew you worshipped me,” Thor continued, voice low and oddly hushed against the gentle slap of the water against their bodies, eyes hot as his lids half-fell to hide the sudden surge of _need_ from Loki, “but not because I didn’t like it. I loved how much you loved me, and that was _pure_ , that was ours, and nothing we’ve done or may yet do will ever touch that. I have loved having you as my little brother, but that doesn’t change the fact that now you’re _still_ that little brother and I am _in_ _love_ with you.”

His tongue dipped out to dampen already wet lips, and Loki felt his skin flush despite himself, as Thor continued, “We had a great relationship, I mean, we squabbled, we had fallouts, but for the most part you gazed at me like I hung the moon, and I _never_ wanted to be the one to make you feel differently, so when _I_ started to feel differently, I just pointed myself forwards and didn’t let myself look back. I _let_ Jane blind me to everything but her, and I know it hurt you and I’m sorry, but for all you’ve been blaming yourself, I was older, and I _didn’t_ know we weren’t related in that sense. I just knew you were my brother, I loved you and that having the memory of you writhing under me, furiously squirming as I held you down _pop_ into my head when I touched myself, was _not_ how it was supposed to be.”

Loki’s eyes widened so far that they watered as he gaped at Thor in shock. “You mean--from _then_? I, I was _fourteen_?”

Thor nodded solemnly, a weight seeming to settle over his shoulders as he sank lower in the water, sighing heavily through his nose. “Yes. You were, and I was sixteen. It wasn’t all the time by any means, and I generally found a way to excuse it to myself--hormones, the bodily contact, _nothing_ to do with you, of course--and then time passed, we continued to have fun and I let myself adore you wholeheartedly because I could, and because I knew you loved me in turn. I thought everything was fine, until the hammock.”

Loki stopped, only remembering to tread water just in time to prevent himself from going under and allowing Thor the time to fully close the gap between them again, looping an arm about Loki’s waist to pull him round in the same slow circle. Loki let his legs drift as he clung to Thor’s shoulders, his mind buzzing.

Thor quirked a brow at him, and Loki couldn’t help the slow burn of delight fizzing up through his veins to grace his face. “You-- in the hammock--that was… because of me?”

Thor snorted. “You still have no idea just how much that changed me. You even joked with our friends about it! ‘ _Oh, it was SO funny, you remember the one with the wife’s sister, ha ha ha just hysterical_.’” 

Rolling his eyes, Thor continued, “Only you failed to mention the part where you gave each letter your all, no matter how ridiculous or crude, or even revolting in a few cases, but do I remember _that_ letter in particular?”

Loki wet his lips, aware of just how close Thor’s casual whirlpool kept them, how his body bobbed and drifted in response to Thor’s wishes, his mind awash with giggles from his past, his own voice whispering with deadly seriousness about how ‘ _he knows he doesn’t have long but if this is his chance to have her, to make her say his name again and again, breathless on his dick whilst thanksgiving dinner is being cooked outside the pantry then so be it’_.

A smile twisted his lips upward and he shivered, watching Thor track the movement with hunger and amusement both, as he said, “I stand by what I said before, it was absolutely ludicrous, and the fact that it apparently got you hot is--”

“I never said it was the story. You were right, there’s not an extractor fan in the world loud enough to cover the racket she supposedly made only feet away, but you were so _committed_ to it, damn you. You sighed and batted your eyelashes, you moaned, you bloody _whimpered_ the bit where she couldn’t decide which hole she wanted it in first and then you actually _writhed_ when you read the bit about her saying she’d never had such a big one in her! I had to think about the smell of Grandpa Bor’s infected ulcer to stop from coming all over myself even as you sat there and laughed ‘til you nearly fell out of the hammock!”

Loki wrinkled his nose, shuddering, banishing the thought of their late grandfather’s foot infection before it could fully form in his brain, having spent long years buried under piles of revulsion and denial. “It’s not like I did it on purpose.” He smirked, feeling his skin tingle and burn where the pads of Thor’s fingertips dragged against his flesh. “I thought I was being amusing, not arousing.”

“I told myself I could take it. That I would wait it out until you went to the bathroom or to go get us drinks, but you fell asleep, and the _weight of you_ against me was just too much, I tried to wake you--somewhat, just your name, shaking you slightly--and when you didn’t stir I decided it was fine to… to--”

“Touch yourself? Make yourself come with my voice in your mind saying how badly I wanted it, right then, right there, but with me literally _right there_?”

A low growl was the only warning Loki had before Thor seized his mouth in a swift, vicious kiss, retreating back a few inches to lick the taste of him from his lips with simmering, smug satisfaction.

“ _Yes_ ,” he rumbled, “and had I known you were even briefly awake, for all my fine inner protestations, I genuinely don’t know what I would have done.”

Images flitted through Loki’s mind with such clarity that they could almost be mistaken for his own memories, a vision of himself arching with shock and delight beneath the bulk and heat of a suddenly unrestrained Thor so vivid that Loki imagined he could see it shimmering in the air between them. 

“I was actually a lot more awake than I told you,” Loki murmured, the truth freeing itself with a gentle rush. “Once I’d realised what you were doing I, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.” He laughed breathlessly as Thor’s pupils made as though to swallow his irises. “I watched until you came, my heart in my throat, hoping you wouldn’t move and realise I was hard, too, had to focus so hard on keeping my breathing slow and low until yours was as well. I… I loved it, falling asleep with you like that, for all you never knew I knew and I didn’t know you were thinking of me. It’s always been a memory I’ve retreated to when I’ve tried to find peace… and occasionally just because I wanted to picture your cock as it spilled all over your fist, but mostly the peaceful thing.”

Thor stopped their circle, and Loki realised that they had drifted back towards the shallows because Thor was able to put his feet down, the hand that wasn’t already at Loki’s waist lifting to cup his cheek. “You wanted me then?” he asked softly, and Loki nodded.

“I wanted you then, and you, as it turns out, wanted _me_ then.”

Thor nodded in turn. “You know, I always wondered, it was part of my reasoning for leaving, not just because I felt myself to be untrustworthy, but because maybe once or twice, I’d thought you were attracted to me as well.”

Loki blinked, sure that he’d never allowed the thought to take form at the forefront of his brain beyond how much he’d _adored_ Thor, how he’d simply loved him with every breath he took, how he’d strangled it down each time it’d reared its head until he’d found himself unfettered by the realisation of his parents’ lies.

“You did?”

“Oh, it was nothing overt, nothing I can even pinpoint in memory beyond what I felt for you myself--wait.” Thor sighed, bittersweetness passing over his face like a sudden shadow as he smiled. “I do know one time in particular. Mother had gone back into the house for her camera and Father was helping Heimdall with my bags--”

“You mean, when you left for college?” Frowning furiously Loki reeled back through his recollections of the day, the entirety of it tinged with sadness and an almost hysteria-like sensation of not being able to survive the loss of Thor, unable to see how he could have made his much-repressed desires known to Thor past his tears.

“Indeed. You were trying to be brave about it, but I knew how much you’d always hated the end of our summers together, and at the time it almost felt like you knew I’d every intention of creating distance between us, and I couldn’t resist pulling you in for another hug. You pressed your face into my neck--which, actually you often do. I’ve frequently felt I should be awarded a medal for holding myself back--and you breathed in hard like you were trying to get a last good sniff of me. Before I could laugh I distinctly felt you kiss my neck, which could have been entirely innocent obviously but for just a moment I thought maybe your crush had expanded itself enough to, to want me as a man and I was so tempted to kiss you--”

“That you put me from you with a little shake, told me I’d see you again before you knew it and then you went to help with the bags as well.”

Thor inclined his head solemnly. “You looked as though you’d quite like to punch me and so I swiftly decided that I was trying to overlay my wants onto yours, told myself I was the worst brother ever and got on with putting Asgard far behind me.”

Loki recalled Thor’s strained smile, his own sense of shame at being shaken off like an annoying puppy and how he’d immediately decided to punish him in some manner or another when he returned for Christmas vacation, only Thor had never come home for it. “And you put me behind you with it.”

Frowning, Thor sighed. “I made myself. As I said, I decided to allow Jane to fill my every waking thought and when the holidays came I stayed away, and I considered it a triumph. In truth it allowed me to keep our contact to a minimum, messages passed through mother and ridiculous emails, so you’d know I was thinking of you without having you wonder _why_ I was so often thinking of you, and I thought that maybe that would do it, that it would be enough.”

“It wasn’t.” Loki’s voice was flat between them and for all he knew Thor was trying to be honest with him, Loki found he desperately wanted to shove him away and rain spite and rage upon him for just a little while, snarling slightly when Thor moved closer instead.

“I know. I know that now and I’m ashamed of it because it hurt you, but I wouldn’t change it any more than I would change your parentage, and I-- _Loki…_ ”

Loki twisted out of Thor’s clasp with a sniff, setting his jaw to withhold the torrent of rage he could feel bubbling immediately behind his teeth, setting out for the shallow end with swift, sinuous slices through the water until he reached the tiled steps.

“Loki,” Thor called after him, sensibly letting him put a little space between them as Loki stiffly climbed the steps up and out of the water, shivering with irritation as much as the sudden chill of the breeze upon his wet skin, “please, I’m just trying to be honest with you.”

Crossing the patio on feet that slapped wetly against the sun-warmed concrete, Loki made his way to the open, sliding glass doors that led back into his bedroom, the line of his footprints behind him apparently urging Thor to follow.

Loki deliberately slowed his steps, taking steady breaths, intent on not appearing harried or chased as Thor closed the gap, pausing in the doorway as Loki turned to coolly glare at him before giving the cream carpet a significant look.

“You’ll ruin the carpet if you come in like that,” he snapped. “You’ll get me kicked out. Here,” he lobbed a towel at Thor’s head, “take those off, get dry.”

Loki silenced any and all possible objections Thor might have made by stepping out of his trunks and crossing to the edge of his en suite to drop them into the shower. He snagged a few towels as he turned back to quietly note Thor’s slack-jawed approval from the doorway, smothering a smile as he wrapped one of the towels about his hips.

“Loki,” Thor croaked, before clearing his throat to try again. “Loki, what I meant before was that for all it has hurt you, hurt _us,_ that I deliberately stayed away, for me it helped me realise that what I felt wasn’t a mistake. I mean, it _was_ , in a variety of ways that I despised myself for, but when I saw you standing just inside my door like you were about to keel over, I knew nothing had changed for me. Then when I saw you in that towel, I knew if anything it might be _worse_ and I basically resigned myself to wanting you and falling in love with you--grown now, a man--all over again, and that’s why I took it so badly at the club. I was _so_ angry because I thought you either _didn’t_ know and were pushing me just to push or that you _did_ know and you were mocking me for it.”

Loki hummed, lifting the other towel to squeeze the water from where it still ran from his hair, his head tilted to one side, watching Thor from the corner of his eye as though his words hadn’t filled him with such hope he thought he could feel his blood effervescing in his veins.

“So… you hit me?” he prompted softly, following it with a huffed, “You’re still dripping everywhere, by the way.”

Thor shook himself as though startled from a dream, nodding distractedly as he moved to pull his sopping t-shirt over his head, before dropping it with a satisfyingly wet ‘plop’ to the patio.

“I… oh, yes. I did. I’m so sorry about that, but you really got me good, yourself, I thought you’d punched a hole in me for a second there.”

Thor’s fingers dropped to unfasten his jeans, pushing them to fall wetly about his ankles as he smiled lopsidedly at Loki, part-amused, part-apologetic as he gazed towards him with mute entreaty and Loki couldn’t quite resist a smug smirk as he let his own eyes rove over Thor from head to foot.

“Hmm,” he hummed, softly amused by the notion of Thor being pleased that Loki had somewhat knocked him back, “and so then you kissed me?”

Thor’s socks met the wet denim pile one by one as Thor lifted each foot, in turn, to tug the sodden cotton free, pushing his boxers down with decidedly more force than seemed necessary, fire kindling in his eyes as he stepped through onto the carpet.

“Yes,” he rumbled, closing on Loki, “Yes, I did.”

Loki dropped the towel from his hair as Thor seized him, moaning in triumph as Thor’s tongue slipped past his lips to twine about his own, laughing into the kiss as he felt Thor’s hands tugging at the towelling about his waist as well.

Taking advantage of Thor’s apparent preoccupation, Loki began inching his way forward, steering Thor backwards until the mattress edge pressed against the backs of his gloriously muscled, golden thighs.

Reaching down to cover each of Thor’s hands atop his ass cheeks (his towel having fallen somewhere en route to the bed) Loki blithely lifted them from his body, breaking Thor’s assault upon his mouth by letting his smile grow in size and wickedness, watching Thor blearily refocus upon it as he opened his eyes.

“My turn to drive, don’t you think?” he purred and, releasing Thor’s hands, Loki shoved him, hard.

Toppling, Thor wind-milled for a moment before grinning with understanding, letting himself fall to splay against the lavish bedding. His knees were crooked over the mattress edge, the balls of his feet only just resting on the floor as Thor lay with his arms outstretched on either side of him, bouncing slightly atop the no doubt exorbitantly expensive coverlet, beaming up at Loki as he climbed up to sit astride him.

“I think I approve of your way of driving, brother.”

Loki sighed, a long breath blown out at some length as he leant sideways to snatch up his recently purchased lubricant from the bedside table.

“You see, that is precisely why this will never actually work, Thor… Here, do something useful for once.” He dropped the lube in the middle of Thor’s chest, lowering himself to his elbows above him so that Thor might regain his grip upon his rear end. “For all your pretty words and sentiments, you want us to be brothers still, as I do, but there is simply no way to have _both_.”

Thor dropped one hand from where he’d been enthusiastically squeezing Loki’s ass, Thor’s freshly lube-damped fingers of his other hand still teasingly circling at Loki’s cleft, and moved to haul him closer, Thor’s hand spread out wide across the small of Loki’s back, both of their rapidly stiffening shafts dragging against their bellies as Thor held him close. His eyes almost crossed at their proximity as he stared up at Loki in consternation.

“That’s… that’s not dissimilar to what you said to me in the club, Loki?”

Loki nodded, short and sharp even as he pressed quick, regretful kisses to the arch of Thor’s brows and the frown line forming between them,

“Thor, it’s not like you don’t know this already… _this,”_ he punctuated the word with a fervent, desperate kiss to Thor’s lips, “can _never_ work. Oh, I admit I thought it could, I was ready to disappear into nothingness, just be a stranger who’d once lived in your house because maybe then I could keep you and, in time, have some sort of relationship with _your_ parents, but they’ve always been so _visible_. It was going to be hard to find somewhere where no one knew I was their son, but I thought perhaps I could leave for college and simply never return, room with you, sleep with you, _be_ with you… but then, of course...” 

Loki dipped his head to rest his forehead against Thor’s to give him the option of hiding his eyes, appalled at the bitter, broken laugh that had ripped its way loose of him. “Of _course_ , it had to turn out that my biological father is only the most infamous and loathed man of the past several decades, leaving me no bolthole to turn to because I’m the spitting bloody image of the bastard, which means no nothingness, no anonymity beyond the concept of ‘Thor’s boyfriend’ and no foreseeable path to be with you.”

He panted for a moment with Thor’s fingers quiet against his flesh, and Loki felt tears building up behind his lids. “The only thing I can think of is to be seen to reconcile with you all, having embraced my Jotun legacy because it helps me, and hopefully them, and maybe even you, and I don’t have to lose _everything_ but… but _no one_ will ever accept us as a couple if we’re seen to still be brothers, not without ruining _Aesir Inc._ and _Jotnar Industries_ forever so… so brothers is all we’ll be able to be, just _not yet,_ Thor. I’m not ready yet, _please,_ don’t stop.” He peppered Thor’s face with kisses, pressing his last words so tightly to Thor’s lips that they were almost lost in the crush. “Please still be with me now, _don’t stop yet_ , not _yet_ , I’m not ready...”

“I _knew_ ,” Thor slowly breathed against his lips, “that you didn’t hear me.”

Loki sniffed, still fighting off the threat of tears as he lifted himself up onto his palms, Thor’s fingers resuming their slippery work of teasing and bargaining with the guardian muscle as Loki stared down at him in mounting irritation.

“ _What_?”

Thor sighed. “That night, _our_ night, in your room. I wasn’t sure if you’d heard me. You just stood there staring at me, but then you said something about understanding and threw yourself at me.”

Loki squawked with outrage, the noise somewhat more audible than he’d had planned, but Thor’s fingers had just slipped inside him, and were already making quick work of seeking out his prostate.

“I most certainly did _not_ , I said to _you_ that there would be no coming back from what we were about to do and if YOU understood that! I certainly didn’t see you say anything – wait, do you mean when you _first_ got there? You said most of whatever you said through the thunder as you _kissed_ me for fuck's sake! If it was important you bloody well should have-- _mmph…”_

Thor dragged him close to kiss him once again.

“Seeing as you require it, brother, I am more than happy to repeat it.” Thor panted as he twisted his fingers, pulling back to ease a third in as Loki gasped and writhed, his cock twitching against Thor’s between them. Loki whined, circling his hips against the rapid stab and plunge of Thor’s digits inside him and Thor chuckled, biting softly at the curve of Loki’s jaw before grunting, Loki’s fist planted suddenly against his midriff.

“Do _not_ ,” Loki hissed, oddly furious even as he swivelled his hips into the push of Thor’s fingers in and out of him, “laugh at me right now.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Thor lifted his clean hand from Loki’s back to cup his face. “I’m not laughing at you, it’s just that I will never have the words to tell you just how good it feels to be able to give you pleasure this way. Seeing how good I make you feel but to actually be able to _hear you_ this time, as well, just seems like an extra gift beyond measure. Please, let me tell you what I wished you to hear that night, let me convince you again?”

“Didn’t convince me the first time around,” Loki muttered petulantly, his words entirely muffled by Thor’s thumb as Loki turned to nip mock-viciously at the meat of his hand, allowing Thor to support the suddenly stone-like weight of his head as his blood seethed and stirred all through him.

“I came to your room, followed you home, actually, because I felt I needed to apologise for whatever made you run from me. I told you I’d started at the club by thinking that you somehow knew my feelings, that you were mocking me, and I’d used it to force my feelings onto you, and I was so far beyond being able to pull myself back from the brink of madness that I had begun to feel almost sick with it, and then you… _you_.” Thor cut himself off, pulling his shaking fingers free to reach for the lube again, his breathing harsh in the otherwise quiet afternoon as he waited, and his palm turned upward as Loki intercepted him, snatching up the tube to squeeze the glossy, see-through fluid across the trembling digits.

“You…” Thor started again, swallowing hard as he reached down to smooth the thick, wet gel up and down the heat of his shaft as Loki dropped the tube back to the bedspread, leaning down again, pressed elbow to palm on either side of Thor’s head.

“Me?” he prompted dulcetly, angling his hips up and back as Thor lifted his dick to brace the searing, blunt head against the fluttering clench of Loki’s hole. Thor swallowed again as Loki lowered himself in a slow, slick downward slide until he was sitting atop Thor’s thighs, shivering and exultant with the broad stretch of Thor’s flesh filling him again.

“You… ah, you goaded me… You fought me, and just when I’d come to believe that it was fury driving you and that anything we did together would be marred by distaste and horror after it was done… oh, oh god, you’re so _tight…_ ah, and then, _then_ you looked up at me, cut me off before I could even begin to answer your taunts and started _kissing_ my _dick_ , and I realised, I realised you wanted it just as much as I did, _oh gods, Loki…_ ”

Heaving his shoulders up and near head-butting Loki in the process, Thor wrenched his feet up off of the floor to brace them at the edge of the bed, shoving hard to push himself further across the bed, carrying Loki along with him.

Thor pulled back from kissing every inch of skin that he could reach mid-transit, before openly sniggering at the poleaxed expression on Loki’s face.

“If I hear even _one word_ about riding, cowboys, or anything requiring _my_ _buckling in_ , Thor – then I’m going to rip off this lovely piece of flesh here and go have a nice time with it all by myself whilst you lay here and cry about it, _understood_?” 

Thor nodded slowly, his lips still twitching and his eyes sparkling as he wrapped one arm about Loki’s waist, his other hand dropping to grip the back of one of Loki’s spread wide thighs.

“Understood,” he rumbled, gravel-voiced, and Loki sighed as long-sufferingly as he was able while licking the satisfaction from Thor’s smile.

“I believe,” he murmured, pulling back a few delightfully heady moments later, sitting all the way up to lean back against Thor’s obligingly firmly-braced thighs (Thor’s feet were planted on the bed now, which was reason enough for Loki to lessen the already tiny hitches of his hips into minute figures of eight, letting Thor’s knees support him), “that you were telling me what it was you came to tell me the night when you _last_ had your dick in me?”

Thor groaned, blurring the sound as he rolled his head against the bed, the noise almost petulant, his body rebelling against the notion of clear thought amidst the tumultuous surge of pleasure. Loki couldn’t help his echoing whine of sympathy, his own body already clamouring for action and release even as his heart pounded, raw and aching in his chest, _desperate_ to hear the words.

“I… I was devastated, when you ran from me. I thought that I’d driven you away, that already you were laughing at me, believing then that you would _despise_ me for my wanting you, only to find that you were just as utterly desperate for me as I was for you, until I’d stood there, kissing your absurdly glorious smile, and then you were just _gone_.” 

Thor’s voice cracked even as his palm rubbed gentle, soothing circles into the dip beneath Loki’s ribs as though to lessen the sting. “Your words weren’t angry or admonishing, and it wasn’t until I failed to catch the train that I realised what I’d heard in your voice was _despair_ , Loki. I couldn’t stand it, because I was convinced, absolutely _certain_ of my love for you, and I felt then that I knew you loved me, in turn, with that same certainty and I could not let you disappear through my fingers like that… not without knowing what it was that had hurt you in those last few seconds in my arms, what obstacle you felt it was we couldn’t overcome because I felt sure, if we faced whatever it was together then nothing could be insurmountable.”

Loki hadn’t realised he’d dropped his chin, breaking his eye contact with Thor, only to find it re-established on a sudden gasp as Thor deliberately jostled him, the creeping sadness that had been pervading his lust-driven stupor all but obliterated by the sharp _shunt_ of Thor’s hips up and into him.

“I am _still_ sure,” Thor growled, his expression all but daring Loki to oppose him in this, setting up a rhythm of short, shallow jabs, pushing the breadth of him against the tender walls of Loki’s insides and Loki felt he could almost see the sparks that gathered and coursed through him with every stab and drag within. “I came to your room full of grief and doubt, certain that I had somehow hurt you, made you fear what I felt for you or vice versa, and then as I stopped in your doorway, you said my name and all but _flew_ at me…”

“And y-you caught me…” Loki gasped, unable to break his gaze from Thor’s as he lolled against his knees and let Thor rock him like a ragdoll, teeth bared in victory as he tightened his grip about Loki’s hips and thighs.

“That I did, and I have no plans to _ever_ let you go, brother,” Thor growled, and Loki toppled forward as though dropped, collapsing over Thor’s chest to choke and whimper his name. Loki tucked his face to his favourite place as he set his teeth into the enticingly succulent spot where the column of Thor’s throat became his shoulder, clenching down with his jaw and body both, just to hear Thor’s breathless recitation of his name over the blood drumming in his veins.

Thor lifted the hand from the back of Loki’s thigh to clasp bruisingly at one ass cheek, seemingly steering Loki into his thrusts now as he rested helplessly on his palms and elbows, rocking back into every hard, jostling jab Thor gave him and whimpering with every snatched, blissed out breath.

Thor’s other hand speared up through Loki’s hair to hold him in place as Thor turned his head, his hips driving up _hard_ into Loki again and again, Thor’s lips at his ear as he spoke each word precisely (between gasps).

“I told you, damn you. I _told_ you, for all you did not hear me, that there is _nothing_ I would ever let come between us short of your not loving me in return. For all I’d hoped I was right, I didn’t _know_ , not for sure, not when I was whispering my love all across your skin, not when the storm stole the sounds of your pleasure from me… and then _I knew_. I knew each time the room lit up to show me your face, your beautiful, viciously _perfect_ face, Loki. I knew that you loved me because you told me so, over and over, and I didn’t know if you knew I would hear or see, but I watched the words leak from your lips just as they’d fallen from mine and I knew that I _was right_.”

Loki gulped and swallowed, whines breaking out with every breath as he let the momentum move him back into the push and plunge of Thor’s hips against him, too far gone to be embarrassed as he remembered his helpless words, chanted over and over in adoration and ecstasy as Thor moved inside him that first time.

_So… fucking… good… Thor… love… it… love… you… don’t… stop… Thor… so… perfect… love… you… don’t… stop… love... you… love… you… love… you…_

Thor pressed hot, biting kisses to the soft skin above Loki’s jugular, still panting into his ear as he reset his feet against the bed and fucked up _harder_ into Loki.

“I told you then, and I’m telling you _now,_ I won’t be parted from you. I won’t let the secrets they’ve shackled us with drag us apart. This _is it_ for me, brother – do you understand? You are _all_ I want.”

A sob ripped free from somewhere deep within Loki, and he shook his head against Thor’s throat,

“It can’t work, Thor, it can’t…”

Fisting his hand tighter into Loki’s damp hair, Thor none too gently yanked his head up from his shoulder. Soothing Loki’s yelp of pain with a kiss that had too many teeth to it for true penitence, Thor was distracted for a moment by the soft, near constant stream of approving, pleasure-addled cries that spilled between their lips, before he recalled his topic.

“ _Why_ , Loki? Why will it not work? Because of mother and father?”

Loki nodded, nipping at Thor’s chin in recompense for being made to discuss this as his body spiralled desperately towards orgasm, baring his teeth at Thor as Loki pulled back to glare at him between frantic, mindless kisses.

“For… for a start!”

Thor dragged Loki down by his hair until he could press their foreheads together, Loki almost cross-eyed with the effort of snarling directly into Thor’s face as he laughed up at him.

“I told you already, mother knows, Loki, and for all she wasn’t delighted to discover it, she wasn’t merely relieved to find I had not been ‘abusing you’ as you put it, she was genuinely moved, if shocked, to hear the depth of my--of our--feelings! Once she’d got past the point where she’d thought I was taking advantage of you, Mother wasn’t even that upset, and if you’re fixating on the fact that she essentially _caught_ us, I’ll point out, brother, that not only was it me she saw in this instance, but she also opened the door on me midway through my losing my virginity to Brunn when I was 14 in the hallway bathroom.”

Loki stopped dead, squeaking in outrage and surprise both as his stillness meant that the thrust that immediately followed it sank somewhat deeper than he’d been ready for and he keened, embarrassed and seeking Thor’s mouth even as his brain ran ahead of him.

“Brunn--you mean _Brunnhilde?_ My _babysitter?”_

Thor grinned, grinding his hips in a tantalisingly sharp circle, catching Loki’s moans against his lips, laughing as they were swiftly followed by the snap of Loki’s teeth.

“That’s the one,” he panted, “and if I can get past Mother catching me visibly not quite balls deep in a girl up against the towel rack, you can get past her catching me naked _again_ and only realising that we’ve had sex by the nudity and _snuggling_.”

“I… always thought… Brunnhilde was gay…” Loki groaned between gritted teeth as Thor shifted his weight and somehow managed to securely trap Loki’s own almost painfully engorged prick between their bellies.

“She is, I mean, she was then, too, but _ah_ she’d heard rumours and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Not my finest moment, obviously.”

Loki sniggered before dropping his forehead back to Thor’s on a long, drawn-out whine as Thor slowed to deep, dragging pushes inside him, the shivers running through each of them testament to how much each of them needed the slower pace to keep from imminently flying apart.

“What else?” Thor ground out, and Loki wasn’t sure what day it was anymore. Thor’s thick, slippery cock drove in and out of him at such a deliciously slow pace that Loki actively wanted to cry, the building ecstasy so close to agony that he’d lost his grip on the conversation.

“Wh... What else _what_?” he stammered, winding his hips in tiny jerks that had Thor hissing as he tilted Loki’s head, his tongue fucking Loki’s mouth in perfect time with his dick for long enough for Loki to become dizzy, turning his head away with a noise that might have been a plea for mercy had he been able to form words at that second.

“What else is there to keep us apart? Tell me, come on.” Thor released his grip on Loki’s hair only to seize him with his giant hand curved about his throat, supporting Loki’s head as he sagged to lean his jaw against the strut of Thor’s upraised thumb, squeezing there just enough to make Loki squirm and whimper, pushing back onto Thor’s rigid shaft with rising desperation. “Tell me, Loki, or shall I tell you, perhaps? It’s not that we are blood, for we are _not_. It’s not that our parents would object because I’ve told mother I cannot live without you and I feel that she believes me, as I still yet hope to have _you_ believe it.”

The hand Thor had been clenching hard enough to leave fingerprints in Loki’s ass cheek (and gods was he looking forward to showing those off to him once they darkened to the point of rattling the usually gentle giant) moved until Thor had slung his arm about Loki’s waist again, heaving him in such sudden, powerful counterpoint to his own thrusts that Loki forgot quite how to breathe for a moment, choking on the air he pulled in, in response.

“Is it, then, that you don’t love me as I love you?” Thor rasped, his attempt at a casual tone ruined by his own harsh breaths against Loki’s lips and Loki’s answer burst from him before Thor had the chance to answer his own question.

“No, Thor, no, not that, never that… I love you, love you so much…”

Loki slammed his mouth down onto Thor’s and his hips back onto Thor’s dick all in the same instance, the frenzied actions distorting Thor’s roar of approval and delight as their mouths met and held and all thought of talk was lost to the drive and pump of Thor beneath him as Loki clung to him, mindless with swiftly cresting ecstasy and the certainty of Thor’s heart beating in time with his, just for _him_.

Thor groaned, rutting harder and harder into Loki and he whimpered, lurking on the brink as Thor pushed _up_ , tipping Loki’s hips high as he rammed his length in and _in_ again. The new angle jarred that exquisitely sensitive nub inside him, pushing Loki’s building, sullen pleasure into a jagged shard that ripped through him and Loki heard himself all but screaming into Thor’s kiss as he arched and spilled, a ripple of electric bliss bowing him back as he clenched down and dragged Thor down to the depths alongside him.

He became aware of himself shaking before anything else, aftershocks running through him with such severity that he felt his teeth briefly chatter against Thor’s, where Loki still clumsily, dreamily, lipped at Thor’s open, panting mouth.

Blinking, he pulled just far away to look at Thor, torn between irritation at having apparently missed the moment of Thor’s own orgasm and extreme satisfaction at being the cause of his current state of utter _ruin_ , deciding on the latter when Thor groaned just at the exertion of opening his eyes.

“ _You_ ,” he growled, even as he smiled, still out of breath, “will be the death of me.”

Loki shook his head, dizzy before he started.

“I forbid it,” he rasped, “short of a suicide pact, but that’s a little too dark, even for me, so that’s a hard no. Consider yourself immortal until I inform you otherwise.”

Thor frowned before sighing heavily. “I know I said I was happy to be able to hear you this time, but if you’re still that verbose after coming, I’m not doing my job right.”

Loki shifted, his highly sensitised nerve endings abruptly reminding him that Thor was huge, hot and _still inside him_ , before smiling like the cat who had the canary, cream and anything else it felt like. “Says the man who just said _verbose_ after coming inside me. Perhaps we each need to… _hmm… work harder_ in the future?”

Thor’s length twitched inside him, and Loki gurgled with delight before he could stop himself. Thor hid his face in the flushed curve of Loki’s throat, and muttered about how Loki really would kill him at that rate, and it was so joyously incorrect an assumption that Loki felt compelled to steer Thor’s mouth back to his to set the record straight.

After a blissful, breathless few moments, Loki let himself sink into kissing and letting himself be kissed, and everything was _perfection_ , even the tiny twinges as Thor rolled him over to the side, his dick still a pleasant weight inside him as Thor slowly separated their lips.

“And so,” he whispered, brilliant blue eyes serious even as his kiss-smudged lips lifted into a tender smile, “what _else_ , Loki? I know there’s something.”

Sagging against the blankets, Loki rolled his eyes. “And that’s the end of the afterglow, then. Back to business, is it? Would you like me to get you some form of diagram or will just the bullet-points suffice?” Panic bubbled up under his bone-deep satisfaction and Thor snorted.

“I think just a summary will do,” he murmured and Loki flushed, feeling Thor’s abject surety wobble the foundations of his argument before he even began.

“ _Father--_ ” he started, only for Thor to cut him off with a headshake.

“Mother will handle Father. They only want our happiness. They’re lucky that either of us will even speak to them after the lies you were raised on, so once Father understands, as Mother does, that this is no idle move on either of our parts, they’ll have no choice but to accept it.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “And… if we were to break up?” he intoned stiffly, biting his lip to hold back a laugh and snarl combined at the open mockery on Thor’s face.

“Tell me, _brother_ , if I promise you that I want no other but you, can you see yourself ever letting me go? Because I told you already, this is it for me. If you want out, I’ll behave, and I might have to keep my distance for a little while whilst I adjust, but I promise I will always be your brother, no matter what, even if we end up married with a ton of adopted kids and a Chihuahua. Nothing will ever change that.”

Loki licked suddenly dry lips, body clenching down on Thor and finding his width still hot and promissory, deep in him and he rocked into it, unable to help himself as he leaned in to kiss Thor as he gasped and bucked in turn. “We are _not_ ,” Loki told him, his voice quiet but firm as he wrapped an arm about Thor’s shoulders, “getting a Chihuahua.”

Thor nodded, swallowing as he reached down to palm Loki’s still sticky, resurging erection, licking the soft sound of wonder from Loki’s mouth.

“You really believe we can do this?” Loki murmured into the scant space between them, his pulse quickening from the notion as much as from Thor’s weight shifting atop him as he carefully rolled Loki to his back, lifting one long, muscled thigh to rest at his hip with a large, reverent hand.

“I’ve got a plan,” Thor muttered, clearly distracted by the still welcoming wet clench of heat about his body as he set a shallow almost nudging roll into motion. Loki sprawled back to let Thor set the sparks drifting through him once again. “Well, it’s more like _we_ have a plan and we need you to make it work, but what you said before, about having to choose what parts of your life to keep?” 

Thor beamed, leaning down to press a worshipful, adoring kiss to Loki’s mouth that was so sweet tears sprung to Loki’s eyes, swiftly blinked away before even Loki could acknowledge their presence, as Thor pulled back just far enough for Loki to catch his breath at the unadulterated love glowing in Thor’s eyes as he gazed back at him.

“Loki, we’re going to have it _all_.”

Blinking, Loki surged up to drag Thor back to him, silencing the hitch of his breath beneath the rekindling roar of pleasure inside him, his mouth too busy kissing Thor with everything he had to shape the words of acceptance and delight because he found, in that perfect moment, Loki _believed_ him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue to go guys and that'd be mean to have to wait a week for so here, have a double post <3


	18. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author couldn't let the boys go without a hint of how they're totally getting their happily ever afters etc. ;)

**EPILOGUE:**

**Five Years Later.**

Light dazzled Loki’s eyes as he smiled politely and inclined his head with modest dignity as the applause built. Byleistr turned at the podium to beam at him as the clapping continued.

_Jotnar Industries_ had called this press event for the sole purpose of announcing the already open secret of Loki’s ascension to Bau’s throne, as it were.

In the five years that it had taken Loki to get his combined BA/MBA, Gilling had become both a worthy addition to those he claimed as friends, and a cause for major concern as the day to day stresses of financial wizardry took their toll. The board, constantly on the lookout for blood in the water, had circled all but immediately, using their gathered might to push back against Byleistr and his _newfangled_ ideology, knowing that without Bau in his corner he was essentially finished.

It was at this point that Loki--freshly graduated _summa cum laude_ and already a bone of contention amongst the old Jotun ‘giants’ for daring to look like their beloved former leader while behaving like anything but--had been named as the official proxy for Baugi Gilling in all board decisions.

It was possibly the sweetest victory Loki had yet tasted.

Everything had gone according to plan, these last quietly subversive years.

He’d begun his degrees under a cloud of scandal, fresh from bolting his _Aesir_ nest, the now publicly known adopted son of Odin Alfodr and the bastard spawn of Laufey all in one person and the weight of expectation upon him had been…well, _delicious_ actually _._

His entire life had always been about the expectations placed on _Thor_ and for all Loki had been raised for his own role, it had been decidedly more as supporting than as lead and the change, albeit weighty and sometimes suffocating in its intensity, had been a challenge he’d been more than happy to rise to.

It had begun with the public acceptance by Bau and Byleistr, their seemingly cautious olive branch the only invitation he’d needed to start his indoctrination into the house of Laufey, and it’s board of fools.

Old fools deified him, whispering hints and long-hidden secrets in the hopes of weaning him from his newly found brother's side, attempting to mould him into their long missed leader in more than just image.

New fools dismissed him as an upstart intern with a familiar face, a _pretty boy_ to schlep files about for Gilling while he sighed at Loki and talked about his father, back when his opinion was still relevant and he did more than just prop up Byleistr each time he was challenged.

All the time he was coddled and scoffed at, bringing coffees and calmly smiling, Loki listened and learned, and then he began to whisper in turn.

It had taken him until his third year of shadowing B and Bau for people to realise the danger. Three years of careful observation and exhaustion as he slogged through his days, barely sleeping between his studies and his duties at the company, three years of careful infiltration and misinformation, three long, exhausting years to destabilise Byleistr’s main adversaries.

He’d only managed to cost two of them their positions, but the resulting squabbling and reallocation of power about the table had been worth it, worth the long hours of enduring the adulation and abuse in turn, worth his sleepless nights and _almost_ worth the time it cost him at Thor’s side.

_Jotnar Industries_ wobbled on its very foundations, shaken to its core in the eye of the mainstream media, seen only to save itself by the careful hands of its leading powers, Byleistr Frost and Bau Gilling, and slowly but surely, B had begun to pull ahead of those who had always sought to keep him down. 

It had all been on track until Bau had suffered a TIA.

Fortunately, it hadn’t been life-threatening, his family had a long history of strokes, and a mini one was almost unheard of in his heritage, so he had been oddly jubilant, but his suddenly fragile health had all but undone all their hard work of the prior three years.

Slowly (and without smashing anything, a feat he was still inordinately proud of) Loki had begun to cement his position at Byleistr’s side, filling Bau’s shoes as a courtesy, not a _move_ , as he was seen then to offer sage advice in meetings, to defend B and counter ideas with better ones when needed, and terms like _born to it_ and _a natural_ started to be heard in his wake.

He went home each night to the same apartment he’d first rented upon leaving the _Plaza_ , and would curl up, exhausted but satisfied with his day’s work. Some nights Thor was able to join him, some he wasn’t, and it would have been a lie to say that their arrangement was enough, but whether Thor was able to sleep by his side at night, Loki always slept and awoke to his face as Thor would generally nod off during their late night video calls, and Loki always slept better with Thor’s deep breathing beside him.

It had become common knowledge that Loki was all but totally estranged from his adoptive family, a ploy they’d not had to work too hard at, Thor’s anguish openly visible in some of the paparazzi shots when Thor had been forbidden to approach him. _Not then,_ anyway.

Bau had taken step after careful step backwards until Loki was no longer hovering solicitously by his sides during meetings but delivering his decisions, and it honestly amused Loki no end that the board had never seen it coming.

A handy little by-law had been preventing Bau from simply handing Byleistr his voting rights, and neither was he allowed to bequeath them to him, but no one there had ever genuinely expected that Loki would make any difference to the status quo. 

He was, after all, a son of Odin, and he was merely acting out at best, a plaything for a rich sugar daddy at work. It was only after _Aesir Inc._ announced their latest plans to partner with _Stark Enterprises_ newest branch, _Stark Resilient_ , and form a new coalition, an initiative to right the wrongs of the past and forge a newer, greener, more righteous path into the future, that people had started to realise who they were actually dealing with.

It had been met with some little fanfare, everyone expected the ‘pups’ to come barking at the rest of the industry's heels in time, and Tony and Thor had each been making waves since their own graduations a few years prior, but no one had expected the accompanying press release naming the third partner of their new little trio as _Jotnar industries_.

Byleistr had hand-waved his way through the first clamouring questions, saying he was always on the lookout for smart new ideas and it would have been foolish of him to overlook such a sound proposal whether it had been presented to him by his father’s oldest ally or his newfound baby brother.

The proposal passed with almost unanimous support, Odin’s glowing golden name combined with the searing spotlight on the freshly-crowned genius of the Stark bloodline just too much for any greedy, bloodthirsty board member to resist, no matter how they’d seethed and hissed to watch Loki first vote for it with Bau’s blessing, and then inform them that he would be working on the project himself, not Byleistr, because, after all, it had been all _his_ idea. 

Loki had smiled, and oh it had been so GOOD to show his teeth to them and watch them sink back, pale-faced, into their chairs.

The press had gone berserk the moment the news broke that not only were the rumours true, old enmities had been put aside in favour of new alliances, but the golden egg that looked set to change the face of the financial, energy, technological and weapons markets alike, had been laid by its three freshly hatched personas.

Frigga had framed the subsequent **‘Three Kings’** editorial, a frankly glad-handed effort on behalf of the press to try and sweet talk any of the three subjects into future exclusives (that Loki planned to take them up on if they continued in their current framing of him as the misunderstood, underestimated jewel of Jotunheim) complete with a photo spread to rival any GQ shoot going on that same month.

The words had been flash and frothy with wit, Tony painted as the mad scientist to Thor’s steadying influence, Loki the unexpected dagger between the ribs, all of them raised to be royalty by the industry's standards, all of them already far exceeding the expectations only just settled upon them.

Loki’s favourite part (and the sole reason he kept his own copy in his bedside cabinet) was their unintentional placement in the photos. They’d had their photos taken individually, Tony at his new base of operations, Thor in his corner office at _Aesir Incorporated,_ and Loki in his own, freshly decorated new office.

Tony stood in the centre, arms flung out dramatically as though presenting his greatness for all the world to admire (and who knew with Stark, perhaps he had been), with Thor off to one side, a powerful figure in his golden office, facing off away from the page even as his eyes seemed to cut through Tony to hold where Loki stood on the far page, appearing to look back under lowered lashes to the place where Thor stood, alone where it should have been the two of them.

The article had made much of the fact that Loki had always been expected to walk alongside Thor and, had it not been for the obvious cheap thrill in the words that detailed Loki’s discovery of his true parentage and subsequent total shunning of his old life, Loki might have been furious, relegated to Thor’s shadow all over again. 

Instead, the overall impact from the piece had been that Tony had been the catalyst, reuniting the estranged brothers with the force of his vision and for all that Thor seemed thrilled to work alongside Loki after all their time apart, Loki remained the outlier, ferocious in response to those quick to criticise his family, cunning when it came to the business at hand, and cool-headed by comparison to his admittedly hot-headed allies.

It was the move they’d spent almost five years planning, not just Loki’s stepping into position at _Jotnar_ just in time to wield his birthright for the greater good, not only the formation of a group that would tear down the horrors of their pasts (Tony had wanted to call them the _Avengers_ , Thor the _Revengers_ and Loki had voted for anything but those two suggestions) that would slowly expand to allow for everything their little band of conspirators had whispered over the years, leading to the name of the _Nine Realms Initiative,_ but because it gave them the chance to start to set right what had been deliberately sundered.

Loki had been seen to stay absent from all Asgardian functions, seen to cope, to thrive even, but no one could have reported that they had seen him happy, and Thor, golden boy of Asgardian and Midgardian society both, had been seen to try and make amends, keeping his distance when it was demanded of him, but _pining_ for the brother he had lost.

Slowly but surely, they were approaching the time to become themselves again. They would never be able to be seen as they had been, as they once were, instead they would become something _new_.

Loki couldn’t wait.

“Mr Alfodr, Christine Everhart--may I have a moment of your time?”

Turning, Loki blinked yet another dazzling barb of light from his eyes as the sun ricocheted off the champagne flutes in the hands of those milling about the rooftop garden and making nice with Byleistr, in the wake of his recent success. Loki smiled, politely on the outside, _broadly_ on the inside.

This was Stark’s pet reporter; she wasn’t afraid to show her teeth to those she caught in a lie, but thus far she was under the impression that she’d _teased_ each and every tidbit she’d ever had from Loki, as though each scintilla of information had been precious to him. 

She had a soft spot for his underdog story and a hankering to see him brought higher than Tony in the public eye (the latter would never happen, Christine might not see it, but Loki knew a good _face man_ when he saw one) and he’d once seen a glimmer of tears in her eyes when she’d asked if he missed his adoptive family and Loki had needed to excuse himself for a moment.

If she were really lucky, he could keep her in exclusives for the next decade, were she to behave herself.

“Of course, Christine, what can I do for you?”

“It’s been said that Bau Gilling wasn’t just retiring for his health, but that he had been ready to do so for some years before this. Was he waiting for you to graduate, or is this timing merely fortuitous on both your parts?”

_Ah, Christine, not just a pretty face._

Loki let just the hint of a smirk creep into his expression, “Now, Christine, you can’t expect me to give away all my secrets, I’ve only just started out. What will we have left to talk about after I take over the world?” He batted his eyelashes at her and enjoyed her gurgle of mirth.

As it happened, Loki really did have plans for her, once he’d remade the world into one that better fit his plans for both it and himself. 

He was going to need someone to watch, and slowly remark upon, the lessening distance of the _Odinsons_ (as they’d taken to being called by some of the lowbrow media hounds), someone to notice and, ideally, be charmed by, their then slowly rekindled relationship. Someone who, with the right journalistic integrity and bloodlust combined, would work _with_ them, exclusive by exclusive, as they gradually revealed their new relationship to the world.

“People have remarked, though, for all your hard work both here and in earning your degrees, that this sort of thing needs time and effort to plan, that for all that Mr Gilling’s health concerns are both recent and unexpected, it was almost as though he was preparing you to step into his shoes?”

Loki smiled perfunctorily at the waiter who stopped briefly at his elbow to proffer them each a fresh glass of champagne. Byleistr had insisted that the press release focus be on the triumph of Loki’s ascension rather than on his ersatz father’s health and, for all he understood the concept of pitching themselves as strong versus weak, it still struck Loki as oddly cold to have Bau here himself, toasting his de facto retirement.

Lifting one flute for himself and offering another to Ms Everhart, Loki pretended to ponder her words for a moment before answering. “You commented on my recent graduation, my degrees? I have, Christine, worked every hour the gods sent me to be ready to take my place here at _Jotnar Industries_ and, yes, I confess there was some initial discussion about what I wanted, where I wanted my time here to take me and my, ah, allegiances if you will.” 

He paused, sipping from his flute and letting a smile linger at just the very corners of his lips.  “What I learned during those aforementioned years of study is that sometimes, no matter how good the strategy, no matter how clever and adaptable the plans you make for yourself, sometimes life has something entirely different in mind.” He smirked. “And sometimes its timing, its very methods are a little less subtle than one might have hoped, no matter how favourable the turnout.”

Christine returned his smirk as she sipped from her own glass. “And you learned this from your studies, of course?”

Loki inclined his head, regal to the last, no matter whose last name he bore. “Among other places,” he responded neutrally, as he allowed his eyes to dance at her over the rim of his glass once more, inwardly rolling his eyes at how easy it was to charm her, going by the gentle flush to her cheeks.

She huffed a quick, breathless laugh even as she blushed at him. “ _Oh_ …! You’re going to be one to watch, aren’t you?” she shot back, tone oddly delighted as though she looked forward to every minute of it, and so he rewarded her with a quick wink.

“Oh, I very much hope so,” he purred and used her gale of admittedly musical laughter to let his eyes flicker across the terraced rooftop and quickly alight on his target near the fountain, seemingly deep in conversation with Tony and their own gaggle of reporters and hangers-on. 

Thor looked every inch the high-born prince of Asgard in a three-piece suit of such a bright dove-grey that he shone almost silver in the sunlight, his hair drawn back into a small neat tail just at the back of his neck. His only concession to the heat of the day was the light cotton shirt he wore beneath his vest and Loki had a sudden and very visceral memory of helping close the buttons over Thor’s still heaving torso, licking the sweat from the golden column of his throat to chase the taste of Thor’s come from his lips with only minutes before the car arrived to take him away only an hour or so before.

Loki blinked his eyes back into focus, his gaze no longer burning into Thor from across the rooftop as Christine spoke once again. “I’m sorry to belabour the point, Mr Alfodr--”

Loki affected a wince and interrupted. “It’s Loki, please. I appreciate your charming manners, but my surname is more to please my adoptive mother than it is a representation of who I am.”

Christine nodded with a triumphant gleam in her eyes and Loki pitied her for how easily manipulated she was, for all she was an award-winning investigative journalist. “That’s precisely the point I was going to make… Loki. You’ve been caught between two legends, one good, one bad, almost as though your life was some sort of cautionary tale in the making. Now here you are, on a path you chose, that you may have _made,_ in fact, instead of on the paths left for you to follow by either of your fathers. You’ve chosen to take up the mantle of your brother’s cause, to restore _Jotnar Industries_ to what it once was, what you each feel it could and should be, and you’ve done it all in spite of your… shall we say natural partialities?”

Loki inclined his head again, gently conceding her point for all he wanted to roll his eyes, and caught his breath against the lip of his glass as, across the rooftop, Thor turned slightly and caught Loki’s gaze.

Christine continued, “Instead, having found out that you were adopted--in what has always struck me as a decidedly underhanded way, no matter how merciful the intent behind it--you chose to take the time to consider who it was you wanted to be, how best to mend fences between everything that you are, to see who it was that you could be, and I just find myself wondering how much of that is from growing up at the _Allfather_ ’s knee?”

Loki sighed internally.

His interviews often came back to this point: that Odin the mighty, the honourable, the _merciful_ had still been the tree that bore him, no matter that he had turned out to be an acorn rather than an apple, and Loki didn’t mind it, not really. 

It was the same part of him that wanted to smash things whenever people started waxing poetic about the perfection of Thor’s face and form, as though his brain was never part of the equation, like he was just there to look pretty on Odin’s throne while the board of directors did all the work around him. 

It didn’t matter. 

They would all learn, in time, that they were each a force to be reckoned with, no matter who had raised them, that it would be _together_ that they took the world by storm. Eclipsing Odin and leaving Laufey’s legacy in the dirt were just cherries on the top of an already very delicious destiny, and Loki looked forward to the whole of it with no little amount of hunger.

Across the party, Thor glanced about him and then at Loki with swift, sky blue eyes that glowed so brightly in the noon light that Loki momentarily (almost) understood how people underestimated his brains when caught, enraptured by his beauty. Having ascertained that their eye-lines were apparently clear enough to speak directly to Loki, no matter the distance between them, Thor lifted his glass just high enough to toast Loki.

_I love you,_ he mouthed, completely disregarding all of Loki’s pre-set rules about expressing their feelings in words when out in public, but Loki found that all he could do was watch, dry-mouthed, with Christine wittering on at his side, as Thor drew his champagne flute in to press a soft, sweet kiss to its lip, holding Loki’s eyes as he took a long, slow swallow.

_So close, so close to being done, so close to getting to be with him every day, so close to living their lives in the open, so close to actually getting to be TOGETHER, so close, so close, so close…_

“…because Odin has always been a figure of benevolence in the eyes of both the financial world and society in general, and so I just wondered, now that your estrangement seems to have come to a happy ending, he-- Odin, I mean--he must be incredibly proud of you?”

Loki dipped his head and let his eyes catch Christine’s for a moment before he broke the connection, his eyes back on Thor’s within seconds as he lifted his flute to his lips as an excuse to turn his face from her once again. “You’re very kind, of course, but if I'm honest I have to say,” Loki began, smoothly, washing down the beating heart from his throat with a quick, cold sip of champagne, with his eyes, and his love, and his _everything_ fixed on Thor across the rooftop, even as Christine’s focus remained on his face, blind to the destiny that was now finally unfolding before Loki as he finished, voice soft yet absolute.

“I didn’t do it for _him_.”

Fin.

_ Our lives are stories, waiting to be told _ __  
__ In search of silver linings, we discovered gold  
__ and judgment taught us that our hearts were wrong  
_but they're the ones that we'll look down upon._

__The rules say our emotions don't comply  
_But we'll defy the rules until we die.___

__ So let's be sinners to be saints _ _ __  
__and let's be winners by mistake  
__the world may disapprove  
_but my world is only you  
_and if we're sinners then it feels like heaven to me.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeeeellllll, this was my first ever Thorki - thanks so much for coming along for the ride, pretty sure I'm a total convert now so I can only hope you guys enjoyed it half as much as I enjoyed writing it :) thanks so much for reading! <3
> 
> (also, if someone knows how I screwed up my daft lyrics quoting at the end there and can tell me how to fix it I am ALL EARS cos I'm giving up on the 7th attempt to make it tiny and italicised before I get comp smashy :P )

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Moodboard for In Search of Silver Linings, We Discovered Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23073034) by [dls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dls/pseuds/dls)




End file.
